


Double Scheme

by Reploidbuddy



Category: Rockman | Mega Man - All Media Types, Rockman | Mega Man Classic
Genre: Adventure, Gen, Near Death Experiences, Some robot hounds (non-support units) hurt at chapter 15, The new eight Robot Masters are fan made, only relationships are family being family, rated teen for violence and probably cursing, robot gore later on, robot support unit hurt in chapter 17/18 though not majorly, so i guess minor robot animal harm, structured similarily to a megaman game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:46:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 19
Words: 52,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22941994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reploidbuddy/pseuds/Reploidbuddy
Summary: In hindsight they should have known something was different. Perhaps if they had dwelled more on the strangeness of it all, maybe they could have stopped themselves before lying Megaman on the table and doing exactly what Wily had wanted.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	1. Powered Up

It had all started simply, repetitively even. Wily had taken over some places in Mega City, sent out eight robot masters and had set some fortress hidden somewhere.

In hindsight they should have known something was different. The Robot Masters were all familiar faces: Quick Man, Flash Man, Charge Man… all robots Rock had fought before and still recalled their weaknesses. They had been updated and had been harder to fight, but all in all the familiarity was… unsettling.

They should have expected something to be off seeing a smaller than usual fortress, shorter stages, smaller (but oh how powerful) machines from Wily and how they were too concentrated on the offense. They gave hard blows, but couldn’t take much, which didn’t fit Wily’s usual machines. Bass of all people even left after doing quite some damage on Megaman during their usual fight. He had left without a word, not even some mocking words for his rival.

They should have known after Megaman came back home barely exhausted, but heavily damaged that perhaps there was more to this.

They had thought Wily was getting better, had changed tactics that would require changes in Megaman’s defenses, and in fear of the next scheme doing the one hit too many, the Light family (minus Blues) agreed to have Megaman on the lab table for some long upgrades… An entire rebuild even. It would take months to get done…

Perhaps if they had dwelled more on the strangeness of it all, maybe they could have stopped themselves before lying Megaman on the table and doing exactly what Wily had wanted.

* * *

Megaman had never thought he would ever feel grogginess, but as he came back online, he found his systems were quite slow to make adjustments and caught himself almost drifting back offline. His visual optics adjusted to the bright lights of the familiar lab. He saw soon enough that he wasn’t alone in the lab when a darker also familiar shape came into his vision.

“Welcome back my boy,” said Doctor Light with his usual soft voice.

Megaman sat up slowly, aided by his father. He could still feel his systems adjusting, his vision sending him scan results. Saying he felt odd was an understatement. He didn’t feel _bad_ , but he did feel different, though with all the updates to his armor Light had to do, he wasn’t surprised at all.

“What does your self-diagnostic say?” asked Doctor Light.

“So far it’s all positive,” he answered.

“The armor might feel uncomfortable for now, the rebuild and updates still need to be fully installed. You can switch to your assistant build if you wish, it should allow the updates to finish properly and quicker.”

Something about that statement felt odd to him. Had he been powered back on early? He changed back into his more casual clothing in a second, finding it still odd, but a lot more comfortable. He turned a bit on the lab table, leaving his legs to dangle on its edge and looked up at the doctor. One glance was enough to notice his tired and strained traits.

“Dad are you alright?” he asked, not hiding his worry in the slightest. “How long has it been exactly? What happened while I was out?”

Doctor Light gave him a small smile and put a hand on his shoulder. “Ten months. The rest is a long story. Why don’t you have a walk around and see if your settings are well calibrated?”

This did not help him calm down in the slightest, but he obeyed and put his feet on the ground and walked alongside his father. Now that he was up, he noticed the lab looked different around him. Things felt more crammed, it was messier and there even was an extra lab table now, though it seemed less solid and almost makeshift. Rock knew only two reasons why the lab could be so spread out and both were worrying: either Roll was out of commission and therefor didn’t remind him or help him pick up, or he was using his tools too much and often for them to be worth storing away.

“Roll isn’t with you?” he tried, hoping for a reassuring answer, which he thankfully received.

“She’s working in the main computer room; she’s been quite busy.”

Rock’s step quickly became more assured, his systems forced on a table for so long readjusting the walking cycle and adding it back to the routine. There was a knock on the door, then a familiar voice.

“Doctor Light, Elec Man is reques—Rock?”

It took a second for him to recognize her. She didn’t wear any of her usual red dresses, but her own armor, which was a chest piece and a hard skirt-like lower armor in a color between pink and red with some green at extremities. A solid headband attached a mike close to her mouth. She now had the large boot-like legs just like any other robot master, though they had an extra part a bit higher on the thigh.

“Roll!”

If the walk cycle hadn’t been back, Rock would have face-planted trying to reach Roll. Instead his still adjusting running cycle let him walk very quickly to Roll who wrapped him in a tight hug.

“I’m so glad to see you’re finally awake,” she said, slowly pulling away, then the reason of her presence snapped back into her mind. “Doctor Light, Elec Man is requesting another Robot Master be moved to his unit.”

“He scouts the robot museum, doesn’t he?” asked the doctor. “It would be wise to have another one to help out.”

“That’s what I thought, but Wily’s attacks have been so spread out, I’m risking running short in other places. I’ll need your opinion on this one.”

“Wily’s attacks?” said Rock, eyes widening. “I have to go out there!”

“It’s alright, Rock,” assured Doctor Light. “We’ve been handling things for a while, you need to be properly calibrated before going after Wily, it’s better if you stay here.”

“Handling things…? What’s going on?” Rock felt fear grow in his metaphorical gut.

“You’ve missed quite a lot,” answered Roll, but then gestured for him to follow her. “I’ll give you some updates, but I need to finish this Elec Man unit issue first.”

The boys followed her in the main computer room, the big screen enthroning the room still, just like back when Doctor Light and Roll would assist him in taking out Wily’s previous schemes. There were a few more screen this time though where some maps of Mega City and various colored dots showed. The table had papers across it all, lists, reminders and what seemed to be strategy ideas in various neat piles, though with the number of papers there was, even Roll’s cleaning programming couldn’t make sense of them all that properly. The doctor and she started talking about the current issue for several minutes, showing various points on the map and Roll grabbing a couple of her lists and discussing with Light while Rock tried to take it all in. He noticed the trash was full of etanks. Doctor Light had always prioritized charging and sleep mode over etanks, saying they should either be a treat or in emergencies.

This was definitely not good.

After a few more minutes, Roll used her head piece to contact Elec Man and told him Time Man would be moving from Star Man’s unit to his, then contacted Star Man about the decision. She sat down afterwards, letting out a sigh and slumping on the chair. Doctor Light put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“You should go and charge, Roll,” he said.

She nodded. “I’ll go in a bit,” she turned towards Rock and gave him a tired smile. “I missed you.”

He smiled back, though it didn’t last long. “What happened while I was gone? This…” he glanced around the room, finishing with the garbage bin filled with etanks. “This has never happened before.”

“Wily came back full force a few weeks after we put you offline for the armor rebuild and upgrades,” started Light. “It was just long enough for me to have taken apart enough for you to not be functional.”

“Wily’s scheme wasn’t what you fought back then, it’s what is happening now, and it’s different than his usual gimmicks,” Roll continued, propping her chin on her hands. “There aren’t even any stages or anything that could even be considered stages; Wily’s Robot Masters come and go as they please, and we can’t manage to track the location they teleport back to, so we never know where and when to expect them… At least he seems to have stuck with his lucky number eight, so there’s _that_ for some similarity.”

“Happily, the repurposed Robot Masters agreed to help out,” said Doctor Light, “so for now, unless there’s an emergency that demands their power, they scout around and defend the city from Wily’s attacks. Sadly, they’ve been irregular, and except for the Robot Museum there is no constant target.”

“Wily is probably trying to pry himself in there to get the robots you put out of commission again before going out,” said Roll, straightening herself slightly. “The damage he’s been doing kept pushing away your re-activation date. There were robot masters who needed repairs that were faster than the rebuild, and my own build that had to be done also so I could help out too.”

Roll’s eyes seemed to flicker, and she rubbed them.

“Go charge, Roll,” repeated Doctor Light. “You need it.”

She nodded and stood, but a call on the computer made them jump.

“This is Magnet Man to Command Woman! Magnet Man to Command Woman!”

Roll rushed back to the desk and pulled out an etank from a drawer that she immediately popped open. “This is Command Woman, what’s the situation?”

“Gush Man is attacking two blocks away. Shade Man said he seems to aim for collateral damage.”

“Keep Flame Man away, I’ll call an ice robot over,” Roll started looking through her lists, then used her head piece. “Guts Man, this is Command Woman, send Freeze Man to the coordinates I’m sending you, Flame Man will get to you in exchange. Stay on standby in case this gets ugly and stay on the look out, Wily sends more than one often. Send me your coordinates for Flame Man.”

She tapped something on the keyboard, then put her attention back to the main computer. “Magnet Man, send Flame Man to the coordinates I transferred to you, Freeze man is coming to assist.”

She flipped through what seemed to be security cameras until she was able to see the so-called Gush Man, a bulky blue robot that made Megaman think of a mix between Grenade Man, Pump Man and Dive Man. He seemed to have some kind of valve that was (oh, Wily.) gushing out so much water that Rock feared what could happen if a human was targeted before even thinking _where does all this water come from_. Roll remained calm and gulped down her etank before guiding the unit of Robot Masters. As instructed, they took advantage of the Freeze Cracker as much as they could, trying to keep the water solid as others attacked. Gush Man, after a while, seemed to get impatient and his anger made him do several mistakes that, paired with Roll’s advice, shortened the fight considerably. Gush Man gave up and teleported out after ten minutes.

“Would anyone need repairs?” she asked once it was over.

“It’s not _too_ bad, but Top Man’s been due for a little while,” said Magnet Man. “An unlucky fight could turn it ugly.”

Roll glanced at Doctor Light, who gave her a nod.

“Send him in the lab room, Light is available.”

“Got it.”

With that, the call ended, and Roll let out yet another sigh. Rock admitted he was very impressed by what he just saw. Not only had she managed a team (team _s_ even), but she had strategized with them the whole time, indicating openings, noticing the Freeze Cracker wear off and giving advice for a quick group tactic.

“Wow,” he let out, “You’ve been doing that the whole time I was out?”

“For about eight months now, I’d say.”

Even though she had just gulped down a whole etank she looked tired.

“I have to go out there,” he said. “I have to help.”

“You’re still not fully calibrated, Rock,” said Light. “You should be at least at ease with your armor on before going out there and fighting.”

Rock paused, then called his armor. It felt uncomfortable still, but he figured the longer he’d be in it the better.

“Chest piece looks nice on you too,” said Roll.

Megaman looked similar to before, with the addition of a blue chest piece with rounded pauldrons and his helmet had a transparent visor and encased his head. With his updated helmet he could be upside down and it would never fall.

“Rock, want to go outside?” suddenly asked Roll, standing up.

“Roll, this isn’t a good idea,” said Doctor Light.

“It’s alright Dad, Cut Man needs some minor repairs and I need to update my map around the museum; I have to go anyway,” she replied. “It’ll allow Rock to get more comfortable, and if anything happens, we have Elec Man’s unit to back us up.”

Rock was a bit skeptical. “And your charging?”

Roll shook her head. “I’m still on the etank’s high, might as well make it useful.”

Rock looked at his father, still hesitant. The doctor seemed just as torn.

“Be careful,” Light said in the end. “And the second the repairs are made, or you feel tired, come back and charge immediately, alright?”

“Will do,” assured Roll.

Doctor Light heard some shuffling in the lab area with a faint “doc?” and left to tend to Top Man.

Roll turned back toward Rock. “Next stop: Robot Museum.”


	2. The Robot Museum

Megaman didn’t find it hard to believe Wily was still targeting the robot museum. The area around the museum heavily contrasted with the rest of Mega City which was untouched or patched up quite decently. If Megaman hadn’t seen the city’s standing buildings on Roll’s cameras, seeing the Robot Museum would have thrown him into a panic for the rest of the city; the area looked like a war zone. The museum itself still stood tall, but was stained with various marks of battle. Where there used to be beautiful hedges and well-maintained grass everything looked dead or ripped off. The museum’s doors were guarded by Cut Man and the recently arrived Time Man. Snake Man and Elec Man appeared to be on the roof. The rest of the Robot Masters seemed to be out of his sight. Upon their arrival, Elec Man jumped off and jogged up to them.

“Megaman! You’re back!” he exclaimed once he came to their level.

The other Robots heard the name and turned their heads toward the blue bomber. Cut Man enthusiastically jumped back on his feet and went to hug him.

“So glad to see you up and running!” he said. “I hated seeing you on the table!”

“Careful Cut Man,” said Roll, “he’s still adjusting to his armored self.”

“It’s alright,” reassured Megaman as Cut Man pulled away.

“Let’s say Cut Man has been on the other lab table quite a bit,” giggled Roll. “I’ll be right with you Cut Man, I just need to update my maps real quick, don’t get into trouble,” she teased as she patted her brother’s padded shoulder before going off to the side.

Megaman wanted to go after her, but then saw Bright Man waving at her, and judged it safe enough.

“When did you get re-activated?” asked Cut Man.

“About an hour ago?” said Megaman, realizing he hadn’t really paid attention to his internal clock since he woke up.

Elec Man had a worried scowl. “It might not be safe to get outside so early.”

“It should help get used to the new armor. I don’t even know exactly what’s different about it. It feels too different not to have new settings, but Light wasn’t able to explain to me any of them yet, so I’m just walking around in it for now.”

Elec Man only nodded at the statement, though it was apparent his opinion remained the same. Protoman was Megaman’s real big brother, but Elec Man sure acted like one often. Speaking of him…

“Is Protoman in your unit?” asked Megaman.

Elec Man shook his head. “I don’t know where he is. Units have to move around quite a bit with all the irregular attacks, so it’s not all that constant. Your sister’s the one managing it all.”

“So far _we’ve_ been the most consistent unit,” added Cut Man.

He should ask Roll about Blues when she’d get back. He noticed Cut Man’s head scissors seemed… floppy. There must be a loose screw or something like it.

“Is that the repairs Roll needs to do on you?” Megaman asked.

Cut Man reach for his head scissors and touched them. “Well, now yes. My buster used to glitch, but when Gel Woman and Alter Man attacked…” he drifted off and fidgeted with his floppy head scissors.

“Gel Woman and Alter Man? Wily’s new Robot Masters?”

“His best,” said Elec Man, “Or worst if you look from our perspective. Last time Bass was there too, things got ugly. Which is odd because he rarely comes out with the Robot Masters.”

“Anyway,” continued Cut Man. “I’m lucky only head scissors got hit badly.”

Megaman could imagine Bass coming in for a brawl and a distraction, though he was surprised that he wasn’t out more often.

There was the sound of a buster charging and shooting, then Snake Man was thrown off the roof and hit the concrete down at the entrance back first. His chest was covered with boiling green slime, which he tried to push away with his hands while grimacing, thought it didn’t seem to help.

“Command Woman to everyone, get on the roof!” Roll’s voice called over com units.

“Snake Man’s been hit,” Elec Man replied. “It’s hot enough to melt, we need to get it off.”

“Then Aqua Man goes to Snake Man at the entrance to rinse it off! Everyone else on the roof, we can’t let them have the height advantage! Time Man, charge up your Time slow!”

Megaman prepared to jump up after Cut Man and a charging Time Man, but was stopped by Elec Man.

“I don’t think she meant you,” he said. “You’re still getting used to walking around, right?”

“I have to help!” exclaimed Megaman.

“We can handle it, it’s best if you teleport back.”

“I can’t, my sister’s there, you’re _all_ there!”

Aqua Man arrived at the scene, but barely looked at the two of them, seeing how pressing Snake Man’s matter was.

“We can’t have you getting hurt and going straight back to the lab table either!” Elec Man’s voice raised a little. “We need you, but not _here_ and not in the middle of a battle! And if Wily doesn’t know you’re back it’s even better!”

“Elec Man,” Roll’s voice rang up in their coms. “I need you up here _right now_.”

Elec Man gave one last severe look at Megaman, then jumped up on the roof. The blue bomber looked back at Aqua Man, that had just stopped removing and cooling off the boiling slime and was kneeled next to Snake Man.

“She’s such a disgrace to the color green,” Aqua Man sighed. “How are your systems?”

“Damage seems mostly superficial, but I’ll have to see the doc,” he answered, wincing as he sat up and patted his buster. “At least my little crawlers are fine.”

“Command Woman to Snake Man and Aqua Man,” Roll inquired. “How is Snake Man?”

“Mostly fine,” answered Snake Man.

“I’ll need Aqua Man up here, I think if we manage his water well, we can destabilize Alter Man, and it’ll remove a huge advantage for Gel Woman.”

“Got it.”

Aqua Man shot one last glance to Snake Man, who nodded before going to the roof. Snake Man got up once he was out of sight. He winced getting up and didn’t seem too solid on his feet. Megaman, fearing he’d topple over, went to his side.

“You should stay down, get cover in the entrance,” he said.

Snake Man shook his head. “Last time my snakes helped a lot, copy my weapon and follow me, I have an idea.”

Megaman put his hand on Snake Man’s arm, and though it took longer than usual, the copy ability did kick back in. They made their way to the back of the museum, where they saw the usual staircase that made it to the roof. They both climbed up until they were almost visible.

“Aim to get them on the roof,” said Snake Man. “They’ll do the rest.”

Megaman obeyed and started shooting. For a moment it went smoothly, Roll gave orders, and it seemed like they had the advantage. If he based himself off Roll’s orders and the sounds, he imagined the snakes were being annoying, distracting and also painful.

Megaman heard a yelp, then saw Cut Man projected off the roof. Megaman barely managed the catch his hand on the way to pull him up. His head scissors had given out and fell to the ground.

“You alright?” he asked a very shaken Cut Man.

“I’m fine,” he said. “But my buster is still glitched out, so without my head scissors I can’t cut through Gel Woman’s blasts.”

Megaman glanced back up. They needed help. He put his hand on Cut Man’s buster, copied his weapon, and jumped up on the roof.

The two robots were easy to spot with their armor. They both had face masks, a belt extending at the back like lower body armor and helmets that covered almost their whole head and only let the others see two shinning yellow eyes. Alter man obviously had some fire and ice theme going on with half of his body being red and orange while the other part was various shades of blue. The blue part was crystal-like while the red one reminded him of some fire sculpture. Gel Woman was all in green and black. She had two low pigtails with some claw-like metal blades spinning like a centrifuge, where green masses were waiting. It was the same for her hands, except the masses were bigger. She aimed a large one at Elec Man, and Alter Man shot a blue blast in it. She let it go, and feeling what would happen, Megaman shot Cut Man’s weapon at it, the weapon cutting it more than at half just as Aqua Man’s blow to the hard green ball pushed it away, leaving just enough space for Elec Man to dodge. He glanced at Megaman, scowled, but dropped it for now and focused on the two Robot Masters. Roll was crouched in the extremity of the roof, fully focused on both enemy Robot Masters.

“Time Man,” she said. “Charge a Time slow, I want to try a focused attack on Alter Man.”

Time Man did as told, his central clock starting to glow.

“Elec Man,” she continued. “I want you to shoot _at_ Aqua Man’s attack to electrify it. Aqua Man, make it as big as you can and aim a bit up, so he receives it from above. Everyone else spread out and surround him so he can’t dodge going to any other side. I think the search snakes got it covered for the ground. Everyone has to shoot when Bright Man will blind them, so everyone aim and close your eyes on my signal.”

Everyone placed themselves in a spaced-out circle while Gel Woman charged a blast through the other shots. Megaman noticed the gel seemed to bubble up, a bit like on Snake Man’s armor. Elec Man seemed to be the only one to have noticed his presence yet, so he stayed a bit at the back, crouched for stability, aimed for Gel Woman’s still arm and changed to his regular weapon for a charged shot.

“Time Man, the second Bright Man is lighting up, release Time Slow! Shield your eyes in three, two, one…”

Those who hadn’t shielded their eyes yet closed it and released their shots. Megaman was dumbfounded to realize the light didn’t affect him. He shook the feeling off quickly and released the shot.

Alter Man tried to avoid the various shots coming his way and jumped… straight in the electrified water from Aqua Man and Elec Man. Megaman’s shot along with some shots Alter Man had avoided hit Gel Woman right on the spot. The distracting light and sudden hit made her accidentally release the shot on her legs and the floor right under Alter Man. He fell back right on the boiling Gel and, in a panic, froze it in an instant. It didn’t seem to have the desired effect and they were stuck in a place for a moment.

“Now’s our chance!” said Roll, “Elec Man, see if you can short circuit them or force a shutdown! Everyone try to keep them at their spot, distract them away from teleporting!”

When the Time Slow was down and that Elec Man was going toward them with Aqua Man to shield him, Gel Woman shot a neutral shot at them while Alter Man melted the ice with one canon and shot freezing blasts at both Gel Woman’s shots and directly towards the other Robot Masters. Once the ice was done melting, Alter man quickly charged his ice canon, formed an ice shield out of it and did a similar thing with swirling flames.

“They’ve never done that,” gasped Roll. “We have to shut them down! Charge!”

But it was too late. Gel Woman grabbed Alter Man at the waist and teleported them both away, releasing the two shields toward Elec Man and Aqua Man in a way that reminded Megaman of Cold Man’s ice wall. The friend Robot Masters dodged at the last second, and just like that the enemy was gone. There was silence for a moment, where it was easy to feel the disappointment in the air. Then Megaman heard running steps toward him and turned to see Roll looking annoyed as she came over.

“You’re lucky I’m too relieved you’re alright to be mad,” she said, bringing her hands to her hips. “We were supposed to have you _walk around_ in that armor! You don’t know your updates yet! You could have gotten hurt! Why didn’t you teleport back home!?”

He noticed the other Robot Masters were looking at the exchange. Elec Man had his arms crossed, clearly on Roll’s side. The others didn’t seem to know much and only listened to what their strategist had to say.

“I had to help,” he said. “I saw Cut Man getting hit and I thought of how this had been going… I didn’t want to see you guys injured.”

Roll paused. “Us. Injured,” she repeated quietly, then burst. “ _Us_? _injured_? We’ve been doing this for months Rock! Of course, we know every risk there is! You got activated an hour ago, we’re not even certain your armor might not glitch right now! And what if they had hit you huh? Hit you hard and bad and you had to go lie down on this _darned lab table_ again!”

Megaman was taken aback by the outburst. Roll just stared for a moment. He could only look back at her and realized yet again how strained and tired she looked, the etank had probably worn away. Eight months of this. Eight months of living on an etank with a brother on a lab table and struggling to keep a city safe and standing. Roll sucked in a breath and let it out pinching her nose. Her tone softened a bit, though she was still agitated.

“Rock, we _can’t afford_ to have you back on that table. While we’ve been making your rebuild and repairing robots, Wily has been strengthening and updating his. And if _they’re_ getting more powerful, we can’t imagine how much Wily has worked on his fortress that we haven’t even been able to even _find_ yet, or how Bass going all out could be like… and we think… we _know_ Wily wants you. He’ll keep attacking and weakening us until he has you. This is why we _prepared_ you. We can’t afford a step back now.” She sighed again. “Do you understand Rock?”

He stared at her for a moment, then looked around at the other beaten Robot Masters and the city from afar, and turned back to her with a nod.

“Good, now it’s still a good idea to have you test out some functions here since there’s other people and the whole place has been ruined anyway, so you can try sliding and shooting things to get used to it” she said. “But if anyone comes again _please_ go back to the lab…”

“I will, Roll,” he reassured her.

“Thank you,” she said, then straightened up. “Anyone needs some repairs from Doctor Light?”

Snake Man raised his hand and Roll’s eyes widened at the sight of his half-melted chest plate.”

“…you do,” she said as she re-activated her com. “Doctor Light, I’m sending you Snake Man, Gel Woman’s boiling attack weakened his armor it’s dangerous for him.”

No one heard the reply, but she nodded at Snake Man, who teleported away.

“Anyone else?”

Everyone looked at each other, then Elec Man spoke for all, “Nothing we can’t fix ourselves with Rush’s supply delivery.”

“Good,” she sighed. “Now, onto what I came here for, where is Cut Man?”


	3. Updating

After practicing for a bit, Megaman was thankful he had only jumped and shot for the fight against Gel Woman and Alter Man. Not only did he still feel stiff in the armor, he also found that his slide feature hadn’t kicked in properly and he might have put himself in serious danger if he had tried to do the now unfamiliar movement. He had practiced shooting with Elec Man at his side where he got used to a new aiming system he hadn’t paid attention to through the fight’s adrenaline (or at least its robotic equivalent). He slid around also, getting his body used to the movement again before trying to do anything else that could be too new to him.

Meanwhile, Roll had been looking through Cut Man’s buster, trying to find a loose screw or an unplugged wire that seemed to clog it, but found nothing that seemed to be physical. She ended up making a call to the lab, then went to screw Cut Man’s head scissors back on. Well, _back_ was odd to say since they had been ripped away, but a placeholder metal plate to screw them on would suffice until the whole Wily ordeal was over with or until Cut Man needed repairs needing doctor Light, who would have better materials to remake his head properly. Cut Man sat crossed-legged the whole time with his eyes closed as if the head repairs were just one big head massage.

Then a familiar bark attracted everyone’s attention. Megaman was excited to see Rush in his jet form descend toward them. Rush seemed to be even more excited, as he had completely forgotten the reason he came for and jumped on Megaman to cover his face with a fierce attack of happy licks. Megaman giggled at the attention and pet back as much as he could his excited dog.

“Who’s a good boy?” he asked his dog. “Who’s a good boy?”

It only seemed to excite Rush even more. Roll stood toward the dog, but didn’t make any move to free her bother and just looked with a smile on her face. While they had made Rush very busy during the previous months, she had still heard him whine at Megaman’s deactivated body too much to have the heart to pull him away. Eventually Rush’s excitement diminished a little, just enough for Megaman to sit back up and pet his dog properly.

“What have you been doing, boy, huh?” asked Megaman, still petting.

“He’s been a good delivery boy,” answered Roll in Rush’s place. “Getting spare parts and repair materials to Robot Masters units. Brought back an I.C. chip once too.”

Megaman’s smile disappeared slightly at the mention of an I.C. chip alone.

“Who was it?” he asked.

“Tornado Man,” she answered. “He got unlucky; it was the first real attack from Doctor Wily’s Robot Masters. We were unprepared and no one was in any position to strategize or even knew anything about the new robots. To make it worse, Zap Woman was the attacker. _Zap_ Woman. And Tornado is weak to electricity. For all we know, if she had attacked Shadow Man it would have been less disastrous.”

“Why hasn’t he been rebuilt yet?” asked Megaman, standing up. “He’s quite powerful, he could even be a unit leader I’m certain.”

Roll went to Rush, patted his head, then checked in his compartment and took out a pad.

“We wanted to,” she said. “But you were on the table and considered a priority now that Wily was back. We thought if we did it together it would go faster, but…” she trailed off, walking back to Cut Man and plugging the pad in his buster.

“But…?”

“…but then the Robot Masters came back again and again and sent various Robots to be repaired, and we made the mistake to focus on you at first. We got too close to receiving another lone I.C. chip, so we had to stop and try to repair as many Robot Masters as we could to try and get more reasonable numbers out there, but we lost control for a while.”

She started reading what the pad showed as she went through line over line of code.

“And then the defenses were all confused,” she continued, frowning at the pad. “No one seemed to keep track of any intel, even though everyone was sharing it. Discussion about units and changing them up were complicated, people would argue and even have grudges about it. It was awful.”

Cut Man smiled. “But then Roll got tired of it and took control, and even if some were really skeptic everything goes much more smoothly with her. She really earned her Robot Master name.”

“Command Woman?” Megaman guess.

Cut Man happily nodded while Roll continued looking at the buster’s code.

“Doctor Light gave me some new features to strategize better and an armor to protect myself, but that’s all that was needed,” she continued after a moment. “See, when it comes to intel and teams it’s kind of like cleaning, and my primary function is to keep things clean and organized, so it was a piece of cake on that part really…”

“And…” Megaman hesitated before asking. “What about Protoman? Where is he in all this?”

His question was greeted by an uneasy silence. This didn’t reassure him at all.

“He’s not here,” Roll answered rather darkly. “We don’t know where he is.”

She fell silent for a moment, reading a line of code, then lit up a bit and typed something. “Oh! I got it! It _was_ a glitch after all!”

She finished up with her typing, then unplugged her pad. “Why don’t you try it out, Cut Man?”

He stood up, then aimed at the remaining of a hedge and shot a few rolling cutters. All five went, sliced, and came back smoothly.

“It worked!” he exclaimed. “What was wrong with it?”

“Some coding for launching was missing. If you had an emergency shutdown or got short-circuited _while_ launching your systems might have interpreted your launching as a problem,” she shrugged. “Basically bad timing."

Cut Man brought a hand to his chin. “I _did_ shutdown when Zap Woman came with the other weird guy. It probably happened there.”

She nodded, then rubbed at her eyes. They flickered.

“We should head back to the lab,” Megaman said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “The etank’s high has worn off, hasn’t it?”

She nodded and stood up. “I’m due for a _real_ charge,” she admitted. “Alright boys, I’m letting you handle the supplies Rush brought you.”

“Count on us,” said Elec Man. “Now, go charge. You too Megaman.”

Megaman giggled and shook his head, though he was right; the calibration was taking quite the energy out of him.

“Ready?” he asked Roll, who nodded back. “I’ll see you guys later!”

There were some waves from the Robot Masters, then they both disappeared in beams of light.

* * *

Megaman sat at the main com. He had been going through Roll’s notes in the past hour, trying to catch up on what he had missed for ten months. He had gathered some intel on the new Robot Masters thanks to her notes and he was now trying to see if there were precise strategies written down for each of them. He was still in armor, determined to have it properly calibrated as fast as possible.

“Have you charged today, my boy?” asked Light in the doorframe, pulling him out of his studying.

He turned back to his father and shook his head. “I’ve been hooked up for so long, I’ve missed so much… I don’t think I could charge… not right now.”

Doctor Light pulled himself a chair and put a hand on his son’s shoulder. “It’s not your fault, Rock. Don’t forget, we’ve been doing this for ten months, we can do it a bit longer until you’re ready for Wily.”

Megaman looked skeptical. “Still, I can’t push it away for too long,” he looked up at the doctor. “I can see how exhausted the Robot Masters are, Roll is living off etanks, and you look so tired. I know how often you have to do repairs, and I can only guess how many times your sleep and her charge were interrupted by Wily… and how little the Robot Masters probably had access to an actual charging device. I have to take care of this as soon as possible.”

“I know,” he said. “but don’t forget that if you rush too much, you won’t be prepared; and you need that preparation.”

Megaman nodded and looked back down for a moment. “You should get some sleep, dad.”

“Not when you’re like this,” sadly smiled Light. “I know how you are when you get like this. I’ll wake up tomorrow and you won’t have charged at all.”

Megaman hated how right he was. Still, one question remained in his mind, a question that felt urgent the more he thought of it.

“Dad… where is Blues?” he asked.

Light’s warm smile died down a little. “I don’t know, son,” he said. “Blues came when it all started and helped with the first few attacks. He set out to go and find Wily’s fortress’ location after the first few weeks… but he didn’t come back.”

Rock felt a wave of fear wash over him. “Did his core—?”

“Perhaps,” answered Light. “I have never been able to take a look, so I don’t know the extent of the damage and how long he had left. I’m hoping there’s another reason for his silence, but it’s been so long, it’s hard to be optimistic. Roll is quite busy with the Robot Masters and won’t let it show, but I know she’s worried too.”

Rock took a moment to let it sink in, then hid his face in his hands, letting out a small muffled groan.

“All for some updates,” he groaned, voice slightly trembling.

“It’s not your fault, Rock.”

“But if I had been awake, I would have gone to Wily immediately!” he exclaimed. “Roll told me: Wily wants me! This could already be over if I didn’t agree to those updates and took so long to think about it!”

“You didn’t know,” Light tried to be reassuring. “None of us could possibly think Wily would make a come back so soon. He broke a lot of his usual patterns.”

Megaman sighed and slumped in his chair. “I’ll end this as soon as possible.”

“I know.”

“Dad, could you…?” he hesitated, noticing the late hour on his internal clock. “Could you tell me what are my updates? So I can go and get used to them soon?”

Light gave him a warm smile. “Only if you go charge afterwards.”

“Only if you go to bed also,” smiled back Megaman.

The doctor chuckled, then left for the lab and came back for the blueprints of the updated parts.

* * *

_When Light got in the lab that morning, he found Rock wasn’t the only robot in the room. Protoman was standing next to the lab table, arms crossed and looking down at his offline little brother. The red and gray robot didn’t let the doctor say anything before speaking._

_“Did he agree to this or you just told him you knew what was good for him?” he asked._

_“We talked about the pros and the cons for a while to let him take the best decision for himself. We let him think of it until he told me he wanted to.”_

_Protoman tore his eyes away from his brother and turned slightly toward Light._

_“Best decision…” he hummed. “And I bet the pros were that the updates would allow him to fight better, so it would help people better? Playing with his programming again?”_

_“This isn’t—”_

_Protoman raised his palm up. “Save it, I’m not here for a debate. Just wanted to talk to Roll. Where is she?”_

_“She’s charging at the moment. You can wait here if you’d like.”_

_“It’s fine, you can pass the message. I’m leaving for now, I’m going to go out and locate Wily’s fortress. If the new Robot Masters are taking refuge there it’s better if we know where to go look for them. If we arrange a proper attack on it this might be over before we wake him up and send him right in there.”_

_Light said nothing, seeing Blues was visibly upset with this upgrade situation._

_“Oh, one last thing,” said the robot, typing some coordinates on his buster (Light was glad manually typing coordinates wasn’t a thing anymore). “I know this whole situation is kinda spiralling down—and don’t try to make me believe it’s not—but if you turn Roll into your_ weapon _like you did with Rock…”_

_“Rock is not my weapon,” calmly answered Light._

_“That’s arguable,” replied Protoman. “If you weaponize her, just know I won’t let it slide.”_

_That last sentence sounded more venomous than probably intended, though with Blues’ history it wasn’t surprising._

_“I don’t want to run more risks of losing a child Blues, she’s not a weapon.”_

_“Good,” curtly answered Blues before disappearing, leaving Light in a now silent room._


	4. The Search

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megaman and Galaxy Man go and investigate with the help of Roll an old signal with the hopes to find a trace of their missing brother.

Megaman had taken a week to adjust the best he could to his new settings (at least the ones he could practice) before he had truly prepared to set out. Roll had showed him the last few signals and calls they had gotten from Blues before he disappeared from the radar. He looked up at Galaxy Man, who was following him from above, scanning the area to find the exact place they lost the signal. It had been a while since they had last tried to track down Blues again. They had set out to look for him for two months, then had to stop to focus on the attacks. Roll had come back to look herself with a few volunteer Robot Masters a few times when things were calmer, but the research hadn’t done much except spark the occasional theory. Now that Rock was back and Wily had made his wants clear in one of his surprisingly rare transmissions, she thought they might have a chance to get _something_ from the area, and hopefully that something was Blues or the exact location of Wily.

Megaman looked around warily, one hand resting on his buster as he listened for any unusual noises. He trusted Roll, but he couldn’t help but be sceptic about the data and coordinates. There had been no Wily bots around, not even a Sniper Joe. Wily’s fortresses were usually heavily guarded on the outside, maybe a tenth of the protection on the inside, which was more than one might think.

Here, it was just a forest with green untouched grass and trees standing as tall as ever.

“Maybe he shut his coms to sneak in,” he said to Galaxy Man over the com.

“That would be his type, but shutting them early enough to _not_ see the fortress with a naked eye? _And_ never turning them back on? We thought he got attacked, but if he was, we didn’t find him or anything to indicate he was there.”

“Well,” Command Woman joined in over the coms, “Wily has been changing up some things, he might have found a way to make it invisible, or it’s maybe _not_ a fortress.”

“Ha!” exclaimed Galaxy Man. “Wily could not drop the fortress idea to save his life!”

Megaman only looked around, worry churning in his metaphorical insides.

“Aaaand… It’s here,” said Galaxy Man.

The place looked pretty similar to anything else. There was a slope that changed a bit the scenery, but nothing was unusual about it. He could have thought it was suspicious if the slope hadn’t always been there.

“That’s where his signal stopped?” asked Megaman, sceptic.

“Yup, with a margin of error of a few metres.”

“Should I worry about the next rocket you send?” teased Command Woman.

“Hey, I’m a calculator to space stuff, I’m not a qualified geologist!”

Megaman looked around at the trees and sky, then directed his eyes on the ground, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

“If Wily wants me, he’s sure not showing it,” he said. “Did Wily say anything else about that?”

“Not really,” answered Command Woman. “Honestly I expected a welcome party for you in the city before you’d have much time to calibrate. I had made strategies and everything.”

While Galaxy Man went to investigate around in the trees and up, Megaman continued looking at the grass, walking in the margin of error. He stopped back in the original spot, stomped on the ground twice, but it all sounded and felt ordinary. He tried a single shot down somewhere in front of him, listened, and got nothing, but a darkened grass patch. At least the forest had been untouched, and nature should claim back the spot rather easily. He sighed, feeling at a loss for what to do next. Roll seemed lost too.

“Well, maybe he _is_ organizing a welcome party,” she said. “Do one last scan of the area and come back. This place won’t disappear.”

Megaman looked back down. He had hoped they could find something, at least a _trace_ of Blues. Any progress would have been good. He hated this; he hated having to stay put, not able to do anything to help. He knew the training he did at the museum was much needed, but he wished he could do more, something more concrete. He looked back up, waiting for Galaxy Man to go back to the lab.

There was a rustling in the trees, like a high wind. There was subtle tremor in the ground. An Earthquake? Surely Roll would have been notified at the lab. He saw the flying robot back in sight. He seemed completely unaffected by the wind.

“Megaman, I’m getting an odd reading here,” said Command Woman. “Have you noticed anything?”

“Yeah, the ground is shaking a little,” he answered. “I think the signal was right after all.”

The ground opened close to him, the grass sinking into the earth in a square, revealing a thick layer of dirt hiding what was under. It was so close that if he had stood just a little further… He could picture the situation Protoman had been in, and he was very glad for Galaxy Man’s margin of error. He looked at the opening for a second, unsure for how long it would stay… _afraid_ of how long it would stay.

“Command Woman,” he said. “This might be our way to the fortress, or at least where Protoman might have gone. I’m going in.”

“Megaman, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” she said. “We don’t have any intel about this place. For all we know there might be double the protection in there.”

“I’m not waiting for anyone else to get hurt, especially if our brother is down there,” he replied. “Light said he reinforced my coms and they should go through signal blocks. I’ll keep you updated.”

“And you might be doing something stupid, Rock,” she replied, but she knew better than to try to stop him; stubbornness ran in the family. At least he had updated coms, so they should trace the signal inside.

Megaman ignored the last statement and jumped right in as the grass was starting to set back in place. Galaxy man came close, but he was gone, under a thick layer of grass and dirt. The space robot stayed close, even went to stand on the appropriate spot and shot a bullet, trying to get a reaction, but there was nothing. He stayed for a moment, and couldn’t help, but find her silence odd.

“What’s the signal like? Is it a fortress down there?” he tempted.

He was greeted by silence again. He put his foot down and made a little mark on the grass where the odd, thick and dirt-covered trap door had been.

“Command Woman?” he tried again.

“We lost him,” she said in a breath. “I lost the signal, the reinforcement weren’t enough.”

Galaxy Man didn’t find anything to answer. She sighed.

“Get back to your unit for now,” she said, “I’ll tell you if we rotate the sky patrols. I… I need to disconnect for a moment, but ping me if there’s anything.”

She disconnected before he could even give her the affirmative. It was better to leave her be. The space robot crouched to put a tracer on the exact location of the plate and planted a stick for the live visual and teleported back to the city.

* * *

Megaman had expected a long fall, but he hadn’t expected it to be _this_ long. Every time he expected to touch the ground, he didn’t. He was lucky his body could withstand the shock (even more now with his upgrades). He hit the ground after a bit more than ten seconds—though it had felt much longer—and was greeted with darkness. This would have been a problem… before the rebuild. He closed his eyes for a moment, activated his night vision, then opened them back up. He was surprised to find only a long and empty hallway. He had expected at least a few rows of robots ready to shoot at him. He decided to cross it the cautious way for now and walked slowly, listening closely to any sound. The silence disturbed him a lot more than the usual sound of bullets he was used to, though he was thankful to not have to shoot anyone at the moment. He was admittedly scared to try and contact Roll, fearing a sound too loud from him might trigger something… though he had to admit he found Roll oddly quiet. He gently tapped the side of his helmet, thinking maybe a sound would alert her, but there was no response. He tried pinging, but the annoying part of pinging was that it only sent and there was no way to know if it was ignored or even received.

He began to wonder if it was a Wily fortress after all. Everything was so… devoid of personality, or life, even if robotic. If he had found this place on accident in any other context, he would have thought it was an abandoned place. If Blues had _disappeared_ here… maybe it was a prison. A prison with either a very long entrance or very well-hidden cells… but he didn’t know who could be there other than his bother, considering no one was missing from the units or museums. Either way, if he couldn’t find Wily, he’d at least find Blues, and that was a rather comforting thought.

He heard a clang from behind him and looked back. He had walked for a while and even his night vision wouldn’t allow him to see that far back, only the darkness of the tunnel showing. He waited for a moment and started considering he had triggered it by tampering with the com, but then heard another one, and another, and soon they were overlapping and getting closer. He noticed little lights appearing in the distance. He decided to not find out what it was for now and make a run for it; the tunnel allowed too little escape options. He looked back in front of him, looking in all direction to find some place he could hide or take altitude, anywhere strategic he could take a shot at. The hallway was perfectly rectangular, with no holes, not even a grid for ventilation. He turned back for a second and saw the source of the sounds behind him. Robot hounds, bigger than Treble and faster too, if he judged how they were already getting too close for comfort. He shot a few plasma bullets at them, but all of them bounced right off, and he had no time to try and find their weak point. He cursed at himself to have erased the Search Snakes; they could have found it for him.

Doctor Light had explained that his new abilities with the copy ability made it harder to delete weapons and he needed to be plugged in to do so. He also had to sacrifice data space for this new combining ability and had barely managed to make enough space for eight weapons, and throughout the months they had seen the Robot Masters’ special weapons didn’t do much no matter the type, to the point they all got genuinely scared there were no weaknesses, though Megaman refused to believe that. Wily cared too much about his own safety and was too paranoid to not have a way to protect himself from his own robots. If one of them went haywire and turned against him, there had to be a robot able to defend adequately. It had never happened (except for Bass, but that was something else entirely), but paranoia had the priority.

Megaman glanced back at the hounds another time. He’d have to do something and think quick. He wasn’t certain he felt too confident with using his dash function yet (alright, maybe he should have practiced more), but it seemed to be the best option for a perfectly rectangular hallway. He braced himself, and activated his boosters.

The first dash felt awkward, and he almost lost his footing, as he had never tried them during an actual run. The second time felt better, and after repeated use, he had gained a comfortable enough distance to let his boots cool off and continue with a regular running. He tempted a few shots again without any more success.

Finally, he saw an opening at the end of the hallway. Maybe it was the beginning of the actual fortress. He accelerated best he could, the hounds gaining at an uncomfortable distance again. He dashed again, but received a warning about his boots’ temperature. This had been the last one he could do safely for now, and he had barely arrived; he couldn’t risk overheating and damaging himself so early on.

He reached the beginning of the opening, where he saw that the floor under him was still going only for a few feet. He glanced to the side, looking for stairs, but he was greeted by spikes no matter where he looked. Below this floor was a sea of spikes. He feared the front would be the same, and he couldn’t see any platforms to jump on in front of him. It was either this or the hounds.

As he was about to stop and turn around to face them, he heard a rattling, and a chain fell just above the spikes, just in his reach. It was still swinging from the sudden falling, but he had more of a chance to reach it than to find the weakness of the robots running his way. He ran to the end of the floor, then jumped, clasping the chain tightly in his hands. It swung for a moment, and one of the robotic animals jumped to try and bite at him, but missed by a few inches and fell into the pit of spikes. The others stopped in their tracks and barked at him, their yellow eyes glowing in the dark.

Megaman looked back at them, the new models being quite worrisome. Now that he was able to take a better look, he saw they looked like a mix or Rush and Treble but bigger: it had Rush’s general head shape, pointy ears and proud stance, but also Treble’s fierceness and powerful legs, the claws and teeth obviously an “improvement” of Bass’ companion.

He tore his eyes away and started looking for somewhere to swing himself at—or a switch to make this somewhere appear—and was surprised to find nothing. The room was big, but just as bare as the hallway except for the spikes.

The chain suddenly dropped a few inches with a heavy clang, making Megaman tense. He almost threw himself back to the floor, fearing the chain would break and fall in the spikes, but it started _pulling him up_.

“Uh oh,” he couldn’t help, but let out quietly.

So far, his arrival in this underground place hadn’t been very lucky, and he did not feel any luckier. He looked back down, but decided he had a better chance up there than a seemingly inescapable room with spikes and canine robots with the sole function to rip him to shreds. He changed his hand back into a buster, braced himself, and waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: That robot dogs scene (and the chain too) was in my mind the first time I ever thought of that story, which was about a year ago, though I never thought I'd actually write haha!


	5. The vent system

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Megaman meets the one behind the chain

The chain’s regular sound was the only thing Megaman could hear as he looked up to the hole in the ceiling that was about to swallow him whole. His grip tightened on the chain, feeling as tense as ever. He finally reached the opening and pulled himself sharply, allowing him to throw himself on a flat surface. He pointed in front of him, but seeing nothing, he pointed behind. He jumped seeing a white mass and he accidentally shot at it, but the single plasma bullet was deflected upwards, making it bounce on the low ceiling of the vent-like area Megaman had just climbed in, and went down in the spikes below.

“Heh, I knew you’d be jumpy,” urgently said a very familiar voice, one that he had missed. “Shut your coms, hurry.”

Megaman obeyed, disconnecting himself completely from the network. Command Woman would have to ping him. Now that he paid attention, he saw the outline… it was a shield. It lowered, revealing someone he knew very well: the exaggerated hair, the shades… if there had been hesitation, there was none now.

“Protoman!” he exclaimed straightening himself a bit on his knees.

“The one and only,” smirked the red and gray robot.

Megaman flashed a big, genuine grin he hadn’t had the heart to do since he had been re-activated.

“I’m so glad you’re o—” he cut himself off when Protoman put his shield behind him, revealing a body battered by whatever was in this underground place. Along with the scratches and scorches a bit everywhere, his hair was mousy, his shades cracked, his scarf dirty and ragged at the edges, an extra piece the same color was covering his chest and was just as dirty as the rest… but the worst, what Megaman couldn’t get his eyes off was his buster arm, or rather lack of. It had been awkwardly cut just above the elbow, where there were some burnt circuits visible and two wires struggling to stay in. “You’re not okay!”

Protoman didn’t seem alarmed by the remark.

“Are you talking about my arm?” he asked. “Don’t worry about that, it happened nine months ago and it’s been stable ever since. Now keep your coms off. They’re not gonna be much help anyway. Follow me.”

With that, he pulled back in the chain, turned around and started crawling away from the hole. Megaman quickly made his way around it and went after his brother. Blues was surprisingly fast for someone who was an arm short and moved around with almost more ease than the blue bomber, though it didn’t stop him from worrying about the prototype’s state.

“How can you see in here without night vision?” asked Megaman, realizing his night vision had been on and very useful the whole time.

“Ah, that explains your eyes,” said Protoman casually. “And I don’t, I just know this place well.”

“You’ve been going around in these the whole time you disappeared in here?”

“Disappeared…?” Protoman wondered out loud.

“Roll said they lost your signal” said Megaman. “The last of it was what allowed me to find the entrance actually.”

Protoman hummed, then shrugged. “Makes sense.”

Megaman raised a brow at the lack of answers he was getting. It’s true he hadn’t really asked much...

“ _Makes sense_?” repeated the Blue Bomber, “Well if you shut your coms it’s not too surprising, I guess. Why do we have to shut them anyway?”

“Have you noticed no one talked to you while down here?” Protoman inquired.

“Well yes, but I thought Roll was upset or something.”

The red and gray robot snorted and turned around to throw a smirk at him. “Upset at what?”

“She said I might be doing stupid when I jumped down the entrance.”

“And she might be right,” he laughed looking back in front of him and making his way toward a larger part of the apparent ventilation system they were in. “But no signal or com conversation can get in or out of his place. Wily found a way to track it down though, so if we want to keep going around unnoticed it’s better to keep them shut. Mine are automatically up when I have my helmet, so had to do without it.”

Finally, they arrived in a slightly bigger space, though they still had to crawl to get anywhere. Blues’ helmet was in a corner along with a small bag and a blanket on the floor. It seemed like he had made this his home. A dusty, noisy from vents home. Protoman felt around a little for his bag, then took out a lantern-shaped light that he put down and switched on.

Megaman had to close his eyes abruptly, feeling something close to a burn. “Please warn me next time,” he said, switching back to his regular vision, where his brother’s damage looked even worse.

“Sure thing,” said Protoman with his trademark smirk, sitting down on the blanket. “Nice chest plate.”

“Uh, thanks…?”

Megaman looked around for a bit at the less than impressive place, Then looked back at his brother, trying to not look too worried, knowing how casual Blues was whenever he’d get hurt.

“You lowered that chain for me, didn’t you?” he asked, to which Protoman nodded in response. “How did you know I was there?”

“Let’s say the pups aren’t very quiet,” he said. “And you rarely hear them, so I go every time just to make sure, and I heard your buster shots and that weird noise your feet make.”

Megaman stared with a puzzled look for a moment, then looked down at his feet. He guessed he just didn’t notice it anymore.

“Anyway,” said Protoman, “we should stay here for a bit. Someone always comes and checks why the pups activated.”

“A Robot Master?” asked Megaman, admittedly hoping to have the occasion to start working.

“I know what you’re thinking, but no, it’s a couple of Joes, not worth attacking, but worth hiding from their facial recognition.”

“They have facial recognition now?” asked the blue bomber with a sigh.

“Not all of them, but it only makes sense they’d send those to see if you fell in the spikes or something.”

Megaman shuddered at the thought. “If you hadn’t lowered that chain… I don’t know how I would have gotten away from those hounds.”

“No offense, but I don’t think you would have,” he said. “Wily’s done all he could to make this room inescapable. Pitch black, fast armored hounds, a platform-less spike pit, and a hidden exit that opens only from the outside… I got lucky there was only one of the dogs back when I arrived, ‘cuz I don’t think I’d be here right now.”

“Wily’s… seriously going for the kill, huh,” said Megaman under his breath, admittedly disturbed.

“I don’t know if he kept up with those, but I’m pretty sure his attacks on the city were to try and make the doc rush and botch your rebuild and have you arrive too quickly. Y’know, to make sure you’re really not ready.”

“He did,” sighed Megaman.

“Light botched your rebuild!?” Protoman started, straightening up.

“What—no! Wily kept up with his attacks!”

“Oh,” Protoman relaxed a bit. “Right.”

“If my night vision and dashing didn’t work I’d be in a bad place right now, so dad made a very fine job of it; everything works.”

“Good.”

There was a moment where neither of them said anything, and Megaman looked back at his brother. He wondered if the chest cloth tucked under his scarf was from Roll back when Rock’s rebuild had barely started. He couldn’t help, but let his eyes trail back to his torn arm.

“…What happened to you?” he asked hesitantly. “Your arm, I mean.”

“Gel Woman and Alter Man,” he said with a shrug. “It was me or my buster. No regrets.”

It didn’t help Megaman feel better about it. If only he hadn’t accepted the rebuild, if only he had been there when it all began to stop it, if only—

“Hey, stop with the look,” he said rather softly. “I was cut in half and I completely emptied my energy in one single shot on the same day and I lived, you really think an arm will stop me?”

The blue bomber looked back up at his brother and gave him a discouraged smile. Protoman would never learn.

“Anyway,” continued the prototype with his signature smirk, “Now that you’re here, we’ll get some actual work done. It’s hard to get rid of robot masters without a buster, and I know a ton of shortcuts.”

Megaman couldn’t help the worry in his voice. “That’s good, but… you should have gone for repairs. For your arm.”

“I think I found out the Robot Masters’ ordeeer~,” Protoman hummed. “Seriously though, don’t worry, you’ll be glad I scouted all that time when I get you to stages in half the time you would on foot.”

Megaman sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “There’s still stages…?” he hoped it was a joke, but seeing how Wily had kept his habit of eight Robot Masters with themes, he expected this.

Protoman snickered. “Yeah, and a lot longer than before, but I found some places that’ll make you start at half or further. I couldn’t find ways directly to the Robot Masters’ rooms though, so that’s a bummer.”

“That’s more than enough Protoman,” the younger one assured. “Thank you.”

There was a light sound over the constant sound of fans that seemed to alert the red and gray robot.

“Looks like the Joes are finally here,” he whispered.

They listened silently for a moment, though Megaman found it harder, since he wasn’t sure what to listen to. There was the sound resembling the Rush Jet, a lot of steps (probably the Joes and the guard dogs together) and… voices?

“They talk!?” whispered Megaman to his brother, eyes wide.

“Face recognition Joes,” replied Protoman with an even quieter voice.

“More like premium Joes.”

Protoman jokingly huffed and smirked. They waited in silence until the sounds died down.

“Alright,” said Protoman quietly once it had been completely silent for a whole minute. “Either they don’t know you’re here, so it could be a good idea to get a surprise effect out there, or they pieced together that you’re here and it would be a good idea to get moving.”

“Wily must know I’m here,” said Megaman. “The fortress opened up to me, but no one else, and there had been parties tracking your last signal.”

“That answers the dilemma,” replied Protoman, grabbing his helmet, closing his light and shifting so he could crawl around more easily. “Well then, shall we?”

* * *

Doctor Light entered the main computer room only to find Roll standing rearranging her already neatly placed notes while she mumbled about alphabetical order and line numbers. He could see she was shaking.

“Roll, sweetheart, please settle down,” he asked, going behind her.

She straightened up and took a deep, non-vital but necessary breath.

“Now, tell me what happened,” calmly said the doctor.

“I lost him, dad,” she said, back to him. “I lost Rock.”

Light said nothing, his heard pounding, but too uncertain of what she meant. It didn’t stop him from making hypothesises.

“He and Galaxy Man went to the place Blues’ last signal was. It was stupid—I don’t know what I expected. We were about to give it up when _something_ opened and… and Rock jumped right in like an idiot!” the last part sounded bitter. “It was stupid to send them there.”

“I made his coms resistant to blocking barriers, surely there’s a signal to trace, we can monitor him and wait for updates.”

She shook her head. “The com didn’t make it through, we lost the signal just like with Blues.”

Light sighed and passed a hand on his face, finishing by stroking his beard.

“I’ll need your opinion on this one,” said Roll, turning back, but looking down. “Part of me wants to get out of here and go find my brothers. I know my buster is only last resort, but I don’t want to risk losing both of them, we already don’t know what happened to Blues, there’s no way to know about Rock either. But. But… I know I’ve been useful here, helping the units, coordinating things, upgrading the maps, but I’m not the only strategist around! Centaur Man helps me when I work with his unit and Magnet Man is _excellent!_ ” She patted a pile of papers on the desk. “I have a lot of strategy ideas in there with a lot of Robot Masters combinations, but Magnet Man helped me a bunch with those too, I don’t think I’d have as much without his ideas or something he said that made me think of something, so— so maybe I should go out and find Rock and Blues… What do you think?”

Doctor Light thought for a second, then started, but he wasn’t even done with the first word that he was interrupted by a sound from the computer. Shade Man had pinged Roll.

“Sorry—” she said quickly, turning back to the computer. “This might be important.”

“I know, dear,” he said with his usual warm smile.

She took a few seconds to straighten herself, then reconnected fully. “Shade Man? This is Command Woman, what’s going on?”

“Zap Woman is wreaking havoc, Milady,” the heavily accented voice answered, “She’s just outside the park.”

“Got it, thank you, stay put until a full unit arrives. Stay out of it unless they’re losing. Can you send your coordinates?”

“Of course!”

She called upon Centaur Man’s unit as none of them had any weakness to electricity and sent them to Shade Man’s coordinates. Once again, she led the battle with the precious help of Centaur Man’s quick decision making and Shade Man didn’t need to intervene. Zap Woman realized it quite early on, and left before she’d get heavy damage. The injuries weren’t too severe, and the unit leader judged a Rush delivery would do the trick. She left them to go back to their patrol and noted what they would need. She’d send Rush there in priority after he was done charging.

Light had watched behind with his smile not faltering. He could not be prouder of his little girl. Yes, her rebuild helped a little since he had added some detectors here and there to help with strategizing, but… the rest had all come from her and her collaboration with others.

He put a hand on her shoulder once she was done, making her look up at him.

“I got my answer here,” he said. “You know what I think? I think the Robot Masters need a leader… _their_ leader.”

Roll, putting in place what he meant and smiled.

“Yes, you’re not the only one who’s a good strategist,” he continued. “But you gained their trust, the Robot Masters who are strategists of their own are willing to _help_ you, they _collaborate_ , they wouldn’t necessarily do it with all.”

“That’s right,” she scoffed, remembering the former arguments and grudges between Robot Masters before she took over and made things organized.

Light took her hand in his comfortingly. “And… don’t forget your brothers are just as strong-willed and as solid as you are… maybe even more with armor and shield, no offense.”

Roll let out a faint, short, but genuine giggle. Light was delighted.

“And I think it’s safe to assume that they will meet and work together through their part… but there is another one to play here, in the city. And if your brothers find a way to get their coms through—and Blues is a clever boy, I do believe he’d find a way if he prioritized it—then we can also offer our help from here, from our expert: you. And who knows, you might even defeat, catch, or batter up a Robot Master or two for them and that’s something.”

Roll looked down at the warm hands around hers, then looked back up. She had a new look on her face. One of resolve.

“I’ll keep the city safe,” she said.

“That’s my girl,” Light said. “Now, why don’t you go charge for a while? Now that Zap Woman came, we most likely have a few hours free. I’ll come and get you if there is anything important, but you need to rest.”

Roll nodded, calling back her house robot outfit.

“Thank you, Dad,” she said, squeezing his hand one last time before leaving for her room.

Thomas watched her leave, then he turned back toward the computer. Even if he had faith in Rock and Blues, it couldn’t keep the worry away. Something was blocking the signal… there had to be some way to make a place they would be able to use, or to break through and get a connection.

With that in mind, he took control of the computer and began working.


	6. Gush Man

Megaman didn’t like the vents. They were clearly in need of cleaning, the dust accumulating on his hand and knees every time he was going forward. His system indicated his own ventilation system getting clogged. It was minor of course, less than two percent, but it was Blues that worried him. If such a short time could bring it up to more than one percent, he couldn’t begin to imagine what number Blues’ status report showed.

“Which Robot Master are you taking me to?” asked Megaman.

“Gush Man, he got a temper and loses control easy. That and his stage is pretty ordinary, so I thought he’d be the easiest.”

Megaman remembered the bulky blue robot, the first fight he had seen Roll manage as Command Woman. He remembered the mistakes provoked by anger, how he was trying to aim mostly at Freeze Man, who was surely the most annoying with his short-timed, but effective freeze cracker. He remembered he had been dealt with rather easily.

“Yeah, that one…” he trailed off. “You think he stores all that water inside him?”

“Nah, he’d need a lot more space for that. Wily finding a way to make a teleportation device for water would make more sense. He has a ton of fountains like this in the stage, he could take it from there.”

Protoman stopped in front of a grid underneath him and pulled it off, giving access to a hallway.

“This is our stop,” he said. “His stage is a few floors down, we’ll use other shortcuts to get there.”

“Should we activate our coms?”

“Not yet, let’s wait until we’re in the stage, we don’t want to tell Wily which shortcut we know, do we?” he said with a smirk.

Megaman followed his brother for a bit, listening warily. He had expected more cameras, though this was probably a place he wasn’t supposed to access (considering the first room full of spikes, he was probably not allowed to access any of it, but Wily would be paranoid enough to _at least_ find some kind of linear path to watch… they must be outside of that path).

Protoman suddenly stopped and looked around on the floor, then took his shield and used its edge as a lever for one of the wide metallic tiles on the floor. Megaman helped as soon as he could to lift it. Protoman put his shield on the ground, preventing it to close again.

“Get in,” he said.

Megaman obeyed, sliding under the tile and falling on a catwalk. He looked around, his heat sensors notifying him of the temperature change. It wasn’t dangerous, but it was noticeable. There were no lights, but he could see perfectly thanks to the constant sparks and flames soldering parts together. This looked like a whole factory. There were hundreds of Joe heads on the line, getting their eye installed, the two sides of their helmet put together, then soldered at the center.

Protoman dropped down next to him with his shield in his hand and put it back behind him.

“I didn’t think he’d…” Megaman wasn’t able to finish his thought.

He didn’t like the place. He didn’t like the roughness of it all, the botchery, the automatism. It looked so… so… _inhuman_ he wanted to say, but Joes weren’t exactly in the spectrum to be judged by the moral of their making. The morals were gray enough for Robot Masters.

“Better not to think of it too much,” said Protoman, patting his brother’s shoulder as he advanced.

Megaman followed uneasily.

“How did you find this place?” asked Megaman.

“A part of the assembly line blew up a few months ago. I explored a bit and found a couple of entryways like this.”

“Blew up?”

“Yeah, the line was built _by_ Joes, so even if they respect blueprints the parts are flawed. They blow up sometimes.”

Megaman looked at the assembly lines while following his brother through flights of stairs, leading to other parts where he could see Mets, Battons and other recurring stage bots being built in the same way. Finally, Blues stopped and looked at the wall intently, even climbing on the rail to look. The wall looked similar to the others.

“What is it, Protoman?” asked the blue bomber.

“It’s fine, I got it,” he said, pushing the tile open from afar with his shield until there was a crack of the outside visible. “We’ll have to ram into it to finish the job, but that’s Gush Man’s stage behind there, three-quarter passed even’” he said proudly.

Megaman got up on the rail, “I got this, get back.”

Protoman obeyed, taking a few steps back. The blue bomber got on top the rail, jumped, and activated his dash boots, ramming into the wall with such force that it opened like a door. Megaman pointed his canon left and right, but it seemed like a safe zone.

“That was maybe a bit overkill, but hey it works,” said the red and gray robot, replacing the panel so it didn’t look like it was just banged open. “So, welcome to Gush Man’s stage, it’s time for the coms.”

Protoman took the helmet hanging from his stub and put it on with one hand. Megaman could almost feel watched as he saw robots almost immediately turn a corner toward them.

“I got it,” said Megaman, starting to shoot already. The hallway they were in was claustrophobic. Perhaps it was safe to land in it, but it wasn’t the best place for an attack for them. Hopefully they didn’t have to fight the entire stage right here.

He heard loud clangs behind and quickly turned around to see Protoman had used his shield to ram into a hammer joe and strike him while he was down. He planted his shield in the moss-like ground, grabbing the hammers around the robot and throwing them at others. Megaman refocused on the front. His buster upgrade was quite effective as it destroyed enemies in fewer shots than before. It took a minute, but they were done rather quickly.

“So, which way to Gush Man?” asked Megaman, now taking a moment to look around, noticing the weird moss covering the ground. “Wily and his themes…” he muttered under his breath.

“Your way’s the good one,” answered Protoman. “And consider yourself lucky; I saved you the underwater parts with lots of spikes.”

Less spikes to deal with. Good. “Thanks,” he said, walking toward the objective, turning the corner like his enemies had done before.

He took fast steps, but was immediately pulled back by his brother.

“Careful, look,” he said.

Megaman did as told, but wasn’t sure what his brother was referring to, then water shot out of the floor and into the ceiling. They looked like small Geneva fountains, and considering the damage on the ceiling and the speed Geneva’s water flowed to go that high, he thought it was best to not get hit. If Blues’ arm hadn’t been ripped off by Gel Woman and Alter Man, it could have easily been from one of those or Gush Man.

“What’s their frequency?” he asked the prototype.

“They’re not regular, but at worst? Just far apart enough to cross it.”

Megaman nodded, heading for one of them, and waited for it to stop to cross the first of three. He preferred Splash Woman’s hot waters; at least his sensors would pick up a change in heat to warn him. The first gush stopped, and he crossed, waiting for the other to appear again, not wanting to gamble it. The progress was slow and frustrating because of the lack of rhythm, but they made it across, going further to some other bots and a few pits through wet platforms. They reached the boss room soon enough, the door opening to an empty room. They waited for a few seconds, but oddly… no one came.

Megaman looked around, confused. Since when were Wily’s robot absent? Was Gush Man in the city? If Wily had made it clear he wanted the blue bomber, he didn’t really show it here… unless the stage was a trap? He wasn’t meant to survive the hallway with the hounds, and he thought unescapable traps wasn’t Wily’s style, what if he had made a major change here too?

Blues suddenly grabbed him with his incomplete arm and raised his shield. The sudden weight on it forced them both on their knees.

“Jump to your right, I’ll get out of your way,” said Protoman, struggling to keep the shield up.

Megaman nodded and leaped to his right, turning above to see Gush Man, keeping himself up with his waterworks and looking amused at the shield under him.

“Angle your shield,” said Megaman, shooting at the Robot Master. “You’ll make him fall.”

He heard Protoman chuckle, then Gush Man lost control in the air and fell on the floor of the room semi-gracefully with a deep frown.

“You little—!"

He aimed at Protoman, who blocked the water once again with his shield. This gave Megaman the perfect opportunity to shoot several bullets and a full charge shot at the Robot Master before he got too annoying and Gush Man changed targets. Seemed like his temper could be just as useful as it had been for Roll. The two Light bots threw a glance at each other and a little smile. They seemed to have had a similar idea.

“You keep yourself out of the water,” said Protoman. “I’ll find a way to annoy him.”

The more Gush Man’s temper grew, the more he tried to hurry up the brat-destroying, and the more Megaman calculated his moves and used more charge shots than quick bullets. He took a few hits, but it was nothing compared to what Gush Man was receiving.

Protoman stayed unnoticed for the moment, staying out of sight behind the Robot Master. Megaman released another charge shot at the same time that Gush Man activated his weapon, and the water pushed back the blow… right on Megaman’s face, who was stunned and then projected on the wall by the water. The blue bomber fell back, thankful for his chest piece. It had absorbed most of the damage and yet his chest hurt. The Robot Master smirked, preparing another shot while he was still stunned.

“I got you now, you little brat,” he said, releasing the water.

Then he felt the painful blow of a foot on top of his head (robots _are_ quite heavy after all), and the gray and red robot he had forgotten about jumped off his head and placed himself in front of the blue bomber, blocking the water with his shield.

“Up, little brother,” he half ordered, Megaman getting up as soon as his sight calibrated back, but staying behind. Protoman’s feet slid a bit on the floor from the strength of the water. “Charge as much as you can for this one, I got you covered.

Megaman nodded, already charging from reflex. He knew he had at least one more level of charge to his buster, but he hadn’t gone to that level yet, too used to the timing he had until his former maximum charge power for many years.

They heard steps getting closer and a laugh. Gush Man getting closer.

“You ready?” asked Protoman urgently.

“Not yet.”

The prototype slipped again despite his best efforts.

“Now would be great,” he urged.

“I think I have five levels now,” the blue bomber said nervously. “I’ll shoot at four, it’s alright!”

“On second thought, he’s pretty beaten, a good five to his face could end it,” replied his brother. “Charge it.”

Except Gush Man was getting too close for comfort. Protoman braced himself, then angled his shield upward and ran toward the Robot Master. Megaman leaped away, starting to aim as his brother slid forward and jammed the edge of his shield in the opening in Gush Man’s “stomach” area, pulling to try and break something by levering the shield. There was no such luck, and Gush Man had noticed the younger robot charging.

Uh oh.

Protoman saw a hand getting down, but it was too late to react, and he was lifted with four fingers around his helmet and a thumb under his chin. His shield fell with a clatter. One of his eyes was covered, but with his free one he could see Gush Man’s satisfied grin as he taunted Megaman, who was no doubt hesitant to shoot.

“I wouldn’t recommend letting go of that shot,” said the bulky robot, showing proudly his catch. “Wouldn’t want to hit him, right?”

Gush Man lowered him just a little, just so Protoman’s chest would be just in front of the spout, menacing to gush out water again. Who knew the damage it could do point blank… To his body… his core…

“I suggest you don’t try and talk me out of it,” Gush Man said bitterly. “Condescending bots like you make me want to hurt stuff, and it’d be a shame you make me want to pierce your little friend here. No wait, you call yourselves brothers. Right.”

Protoman knew Rock enough, that he wouldn’t want to risk it. The perfectly open view of the spout though… He put his hand on top of the Robot Master, and without wasting a second, he raised his foot and smashed his heel as hard as he could right onto the spout.

There was a crunch, and Gush Man’s hand got tense. Nice.

The Robot Master growled, squeezing more with his hand, but the spout was broken, and it seemed to make the water unavailable. He felt himself being lifted again, and he raised his feet, this time aiming for the face. It hit the target, and Gush Man threw him to the wall in frustration.

Perfect.

Megaman released the shot, the ball of energy hitting full force the now weakened spout, tearing it away completely. Gush Man was pushed by the impact, his bulky body hitting the ground. Megaman remained wary, but the Robot Master didn’t move.

Protoman stood back up, dazed, but not too battered. He went to take back his shield and Megaman joined him there, looking down at the now blank eyes of Gush Man.

“We should take his I.C. chip,” said Protoman. “If we can avoid having to destroy them a second time, that’d be great.”

Megaman hadn’t waited for him to finish the sentence and was already on his knees, pulling on Gush Man’s helmet to reveal circuits and eventually the chip in question. Touching him seemed enough for his new copying system, that sent him a notification of new weapon data equipped: Gush Valve. He looked back at the I.C. chip, hesitating if he should remove it.

“Is there any safe place we can put it?” he asked his brother

“I knew you’d worry about it,” the oldest said, turning his shield around, revealing a small black box solidly attached. “Crafted this a little while ago, should keep them pretty safe.”

Megaman looked sceptic.

“Come on,” said Protoman in response to the look. “You put them in Rush, and he was with you until the final bosses. And if we don’t take it, Wily will or his systems will fry it.”

This seemed to convince Megaman as he pulled off the chip and put it in the box on Protoman’s shield. To his credit, it was tricky to open and was a lot thicker than it seemed; this might do until he could call Rush to get them to Roll in a safer place. He looked back at Gush Man’s deactivated body. He still hated this, but he was used to it, and he hated that fact even more. He wouldn’t let Wily escape this time; he just couldn’t.

“We should get going,” he said. “Who’s next?”


	7. Fog Man

The trip to Fog Man’s stage was short, to Megaman’s delight; the less time he spent in that disturbing factory the better. Protoman had informed him they wouldn’t have to go so deep again as the other stages were on higher floors and Wily’s main defenses were in another section entirely. He had wondered why they hadn’t gone directly to Wily, but then he thought about having to fight all the Robot Masters at the same time plus most likely Bass (If they teleported into the city at will, Wily could call them at his side for sure), and Gush Man had been tedious enough, he couldn’t imagine what all the Robot Masters together would be like… Gush Man was first on Blues’ list after all, the bosses would only be harder from here. His train of thought went back to Bass.

“Have you seen Bass in the fortress?” asked Megaman.

Part of him was relieved he didn’t have to fight him, but not seeing him or hearing of him was a bit worrying. Sure, Elec Man had mentioned back at the museum how _last time_ Alter Man and Gel Woman had attacked the museum he was also there, but how long had it been since that _last time_?

“A couple of times,” Protoman had seemed hesitant to answer, but it didn’t last long as he switched for a teasing tone. “Why? You want to fight him?”

“No!” Megaman huffed.

Blues chuckled at hurried out answer and focused back in front of him. He had found an entrance at half the stage. So far, it was one of those annoying for optics stages. There was Fog regularly covering platform-based rooms and it was better to wait it out. It reminded him of Shadow Man’s stage and the weird device on the ceiling that closed the lights on sight or Bright Man’s light bulb robots he had more than once accidentally shot and had to wait for a firework robot to show up. Oh, how he hadn’t missed these.

“Have you seen him recently?” hesitantly continued Megaman.

“… yeeaah?” Protoman looked confused. “Why does it even matter to you?”

“Well, Wily’s been doing things out of his habit, starting with his uprising before I got put offline for my rebuild, and Elec Mn didn’t mention Treble either and—”

He could almost hear the eye-rolling in Protoman’s words “And you’re worried. Come on, it’s Bass, he’s fine.”

Megaman was about to reply, but decided to drop it for the moment.

They finally exited the (way too long) timed fog room into a long hallway with some destroyed parts and a few Mets in the distance. Then they heard a loud “psht” sound and thick fog started covering the floor, but didn’t raise.

“Oh great,” sighed Megaman. “Now the Mets are camouflaged.”

Protoman looked down at the fog reaching their feet, moving his foot up, raising some of it.

“Looks like Wily put part of his fortress budget in buying lying fog machines,” he said casually. “That’s more of a theatre thing, but okay.”

“Theatre?” Rock looked at him with a confused look as they started going forward. “Since when are you interested in theatre?”

“You’d be surprised how often I go,” replied Protoman, watching for any Met bullet he’d need to deflect. “I’ll take you one of those days.”

Megaman felt the ground in front of him with his foot, but felt the edge meeting nothing.

“Should we wait for it to clear?” he said. “You’re the expert; how long does it take to clear?”

He had his answer to the first answer soon enough as he heard another “psht”.

“I don’t think Wily will let it clear,” smirked his brother.

So this was going to be another slow room in an overall slow stage. Great. He definitely did not like this one at all. Their progress was slow, but steady. Protoman was covering him while he made sure they didn’t fall in a pit, though he never knew how small the next part of solid ground would be, and he didn’t appreciate the borderline leaps of faith they had to do. Luckily, the only thing that fell were a few small pieces of the floor detaching under the shocks of their landing.

They finally arrived at the end of the room. According to Protoman’s explorations a few months ago, they were one room away from the Robot Master’s. As the rest of the stage had been, the room was platform-heavy, though this time there didn’t seem to be any enemies or anything obstructing their vision, which was odd. There were sounds coming from above, regular and loud. A Joe maybe? They looked up and saw a grid as long as the room. Megaman aimed upwards, paying attention to the sounds as much as he could.

“You couldn’t get us to this grid?” asked Megaman quietly.

“I didn’t find a way to it; it’s not attached to the rest.”

“Then where does it go?” wondered Megaman out loud.

They looked at the grid and saw it stretch throughout the room, even touching the Robot Master door. They glanced at each other, thinking the same thing, and Megaman shot the moment he heard another sound. There was a louder clang followed by an “ow”. Megaman tried to shoot again, but it seemed the owner of the voice had moved. There was an all too familiar “psht” sound as the one above continued moving. Knowing what would happen soon, the brothers pressed forward, trying to do as much platforming as they could while they could still see, but the fog had come down soon enough, and they remained stuck in the middle of the room on a quite narrow platform. Hopefully they could wait it out.

Something stung Megaman’s back.

“Ow—Blues?”

“Nu-uh, not me,” was his answer.

Then two more stings. He shot where one of them had come from, but his bullet pinged on a wall.

“Where are they…?” Megaman thought out loud.

“They’re not regular robots; they go through my shield.”

“Th… that’s right!” answered an unknown voice. “No protect—no protect-… gear will k-k-k-keep my robots from you!”

Basing himself on the source of the noise, Megaman shot again.

“OW!”

The blue bomber almost lowered his canon at the sound. He really did not want to fight him. The few stings coming left made him pretty annoyed though.

“I’ll show you!” said the voice.

There were some bullet sounds, and two of them hit Megaman on his buster shoulder, forcing him to lower it. He disarmed the buster and grabbed onto Blues’ arm for safety, fearing a bullet on either of them could make them topple over the edge of the platform. He felt the prototype tensing up under his grip and soon enough there were two more blasts, this time, one of them deflected by the shield. The blue bomber crouched slightly. The stinging continued, and Megaman could feel them eating chunks of his energy slowly. The pain was short lived, but constant because of the numbers, making it annoying. If the situation hadn’t included getting shot, he’d have grunted out the frustration. For a moment he wanted to shoot at whatever was stinging them… Was that how Bass felt like 24/7?

“Let’s surprise him a little,” said Protoman, tearing his attention away from the stings. “You can still use your other arm as buster, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Alright, act unable to shoot for a minute while I find where he is, then shoot at the angle I tell you. Your systems still calculate angles, right?”

“Of course, which side is zero?”

“Zero points at me.”

Megaman crouched more and started to charge. There was the sound of a few bullets deflected, then Protoman’s voice came to him again after a moment.

“78 degrees, shoot on three.”

Megaman angled his arm as precisely as he could to not touch Protoman’s arm or shield he guessed he was at level three of charging.

“One, two, three!”

There was a sound in the air as the red and gray robot retracted his shield from over his brother and Megaman extended his arm, shooting at 77, 6 degrees thanks to the sudden extension. It seemed to hit anyway. A yelp was heard from above, there was one last bullet directed at Protoman, who still had the angle figured out and blocked it, and then quick steps getting away. They disappeared behind the Robot Master’s door at the other side of the room. The stinging stopped, and the fog slowly started the fade out.

“I guess this was a playroom for Fog Man,” said Blues.

“At least I was able to hit,” said Megaman. “Let’s hope the rest goes quickly.”

Once the floor underneath their feet was visible again, they made their way through the rest of the room to the boss door.

“Did you find out his weakness?” asked Megaman once they were between the to doors. “I’m guessing it’s not Gush Valve, or you’d have told me to use it already.”

“I mean, fog is water, he wouldn’t be weak to another form of his element. This one seems more like an assist robot, I haven’t seen him in action much, but I have a guess.”

“Which is…?”

“Alter Man’s weapon, temperature change seems to destabilize him. Problem is, fighting Alter Man early on is a bad idea.”

Megaman looked down at his buster. Seemed like the regular shots would have to do.

When the door opened, they were greeted by an “invisible” room. The fog was so thick inside that none of them could see the tip of their nose. The room they had just gone through was nothing compared to this. It got so humid that his sensors confused the surroundings for water, and then settled for rain. Inaccurate, but at least he didn’t exactly need these for now. For a moment they remained still and listened, trying to pin-point the location of the attacker.

Then the stinging began. Again.

Megaman looked around, trying to see any kind of movement in the fog, but was too thick. His sensors changed their minds again, settling back to water, then changed again for rain. It was harmless, but distracting, he hoped it would settle. He could feel his optics trying to adjust, but with no success, as he couldn’t see any better.

Megaman received a direct hit on the chest and tipped back in surprise, hitting his brother’s back. The Blue Bomber felt Protoman’s stub slide under his arm, like an attempt at grabbing.

“Alright, time to drop the _jump and shoot_ ,” he said, pushing against Megaman side to incite him to keep moving. “He has the field advantage, and if our weakness guess is right, we’ll have to turn it against him..”

“Figures,” said Megaman. “I’m guessing _stick together_ would be a good beginning.”

“How are your energy levels?”

“A bit more than a quarter.”

Protoman thought for a second, then waved his shield in front of him. There were numerous quiet metallic sounds.

“I’m touching _something_ …” he said. “You have anything that could warm this place up?”

“My dash boots seem to generate a lot of heat, but that’s it.”

“It’s something. I’ll keep the stingers away as much as I can, you try and warm this fog up. Hold on to my stub.”

Megaman hated how he said _stub_ so casually, but did grab a hold of the existing upper arm. He felt Protoman move under his grip and heard his shield move through the air. Megaman shot a few bullets to the ceiling with the hope it would help, then activated his dash, though with him standing straight they didn’t get him anywhere but a few centimeters up. The warning appeared again after a few dashes. He heard Protoman gasp through the shots.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I’m fine, keep going.”

There was a movement in the upper corner of the room and a sound of metal against metal. There was the sound of a buster firing, and Blues’ shield deflecting. Megaman shot at the sound. There was a clang on the floor.

“Ow--!” said Fog Man from the bottom of the room. “This isn-isn… This isn’t over!”

There were more shots, some getting to Megaman, some being deflected and others reaching Blues. The youngest would have tried shooting by ear again, but the risk of hitting Blues was too important. He noticed there were even less stings than when Protoman had begun pushing them away. He could hear several quiet clings under him. Fog Man gasped at the other side of the room.

“No! This c-c-c-can’t be! My babies!” exclaimed Fog Man. “You…! You!”

Megaman ignored the warning this time and used his boots until the critical warning. If he could see them, he was certain they would be letting out smoke. There were no more stings. His optics felt strained from the constant adjustments attempts, and his sensors were completely confused by the change of temperature and hesitated between rain and water again. He ignored the notifications best he could.

There was a blaster shot, and Protoman gasped.

“Protoman!” said Megaman.

“I’m fine,” insisted the prototype, still panting. “Think you can handle the rest?”

“Yeah.”

He felt his brother crouch in his grip and Megaman let go. He shot where the sound of the buster had come from and followed the sound of steps, shooting as much as he could. If he heard nothing, he tried upwards. The fog was starting to dissipate, and his opponent seemed too busy dodging and shooting to make more fog. Megaman could finally start to make out a shape, and he shot as much as he could. He saw the Robot Master jumping to the ceiling, grabbing onto the grid he had (presumably) previously walked on. The Blue Bomber charged until his fourth level, then released. Fog Man let go of the grid and fell with a dull, heavy thud.

He made his way to the Robot Master and saw him lying flat on his back and staring up. He seemed to be a rounder robot about Heat Man’s size and height. His eyes barely popped out of the cloud surrounding his torso and limbs. He wasn’t dead yet, but he was low on energy and didn’t seem capable for any continuation of the fight. Megaman looked down at him, buster at his side, brow furrowing in a sad frown.

He didn’t want to do this.

“I don’t… I don’t want your pi-pi… your pity,” Fog Man said weakly, frowning deeply.

The Blue Bomber couldn’t help, “You went down too easy,” he let out.

Fog Man dryly chuckled. “That’s c-c-c-c-called being an… an assist robot k-ku-ku-kid. Not meant to be… to be shot.”

“You shouldn’t have to be shot period.”

“If only that were t-t-t-true.”

“Surrender…?” the Light bot tried, knowing the answer.

“No.”

Megaman sighed. He shouldn’t drag this on. He raised his buster at Fog Man and shot the final bullet.

He hated this so much.

He copied the weapon—Blind Strike, probably something that made a lot of fog, what else—and went to look for the I.C. chip. Now that the Robot Mast had stopped functioning, the fog around his body had also dissipated, leaving in plain sight a very basic armor, barely enough to be called an armor. He really wasn’t meant to be shot at.

Megaman noticed around him some kind of sand. It looked like black sand, but the grains were bigger. Were these the stingers? He took one between in thumb and index. It was so small it was hard to see anything, but they were definitely robots; robots so little they couldn’t get any protective features, not even from heat. He dropped it back and focused on the I.C. chip again. He found it soon enough and turned back, ready to put it in his brother’s box.

Protoman was still crouched, tugging at the square fabric over his chest.

“Are you alright?” asked Megaman, hurrying back to his side.

“I’m fine.”

“Is your core acting up…?” tempted the blue bomber.

“It’s fine.”

“Do you need me to take a look?”

“I said it’s fine!” exclaimed Protoman, perhaps a bit too curtly. “You should put the I.C. chip in the box before the fog remnants damage it.”

“Right.”

He struggled with the box a little, but managed to open it and slid the Fog Man’s chip alongside Gush Man’s.

“I don’t suppose you have etanks at your place in the vents?” asked Megaman.

“I have one, but I’d save it for Wily if I were you.”

“Maybe _you_ should use it,” said the youngest, looking at the yellow piece Blues was clutching as if he could see underneath. “Are you sure you don’t want me to take a look?”

“I’m fine, it’ll cool down by itself,” Protoman assured, getting up. “Could you put my shield on my back?”

“Cool down?” Megaman repeated as he set the shield at its rightful place. “Protoman, don’t tell me you overloaded your core to warm up the fog!”

“It was already overloading, I just gave it a little nudge more,” shrugged the prototype. “Let’s just go back.”

The topic was not over, but it was useless to try and push it. They turned off their coms as soon as they reached the factory again, disappearing from the radar once again. The way back was silent except for Blues’ panting. With his energy levels being so low, part of him was glad.

Once they were back in Blues’ little home, they both plopped down on the blanket. The notification of dust levels didn’t bother Megaman this time, it had cleared during their time out anyway. He shut off his night vision, his optics still feeling sore from the constant indecisive adjustments from earlier.

“How’s your core holding up?” he asked.

“It’s cooling down… your boots?”

“They’re back to normal.”

“Good.”

They remained silent for a moment, Megaman looking up with tired eyes and Protoman feeling around the bag for his light.

“Hey Rock?”

But there was no response. Blues took his light and looked at the Blue Bomber. His eyes were closed. He guessed he fell into sleep mode; his energy levels were pretty low after all. He got up and started crawling; his question could wait a few hours. Now that his brother was out, he had to make a little stop somewhere.


	8. Guillo Man

The sounds echoing in the vents violently pulled Megaman out of sleep mode. He sat up on the blanket and activated his night vision, looking around for any danger, but could see nothing, he was alone. He could hear loud steps and an authoritative voice too weak to be close, but too loud to lower his guard. He searched around for Blues, but he was nowhere near.

“Protoman?” he called in a whisper. “Protoman?”

He slowly put himself on his knees and started crawling as quietly as possible toward one of the openings to look in. He almost jumped seeing what he wished: Protoman on all fours—well, all threes—immobile, but well. His head snapped up when Megaman looked, then after a second, he placed himself in a more stable position to gesture at Rock to stay where he was. The prototype listened for a moment, then slowly and quietly crawled back to Megaman’s location.

“What’s going on?” whispered Megaman even more quietly now that his brother was next to him. “Should we leave?”

“The place is not in jeopardy,” whispered back Protoman. “There’s patrols sometimes, though it’s pretty big this time. I know they searched for me a couple times, but I’m guessing since it’s official you’re here we’re actually considered a danger now.”

“Wily should be scared of you,” said Megaman with a smirk even if Protoman wouldn’t see.

Protoman had a quiet chuckle. “Well with my buster arm gone I’m not much of a threat.”

They sat back for a moment, listening to the sounds. There was this authoritative voice again, slightly louder this time, and Protoman seemed to perk up at it.

“What is this voice?” asked Megaman. “Whose is it?”

“It’s Boost Woman’s,” replied Protoman.

This one was rather new; he had never seen her attack or even really heard her name.

“A Robot Master?” he said, guessing by the name, but not actually knowing.

“Yeah, she’s responsible for the inside of the fortress since she can get around easy and quickly. Wall jumping isn’t the most useful thing to try and damage things.”

Megaman thought for a moment.

“Do we have her weakness?” he asked in the end. “If we do it now, we’ll have the surprise element, right?”

“Not a bad idea, but we don’t have it yet. It _is_ one of the next Robot Masters in the order though. Zap Woman and Guillo Man are on a similar level.”

“What’s her weakness?” asked Megaman.

“Guillo Man’s.”

“Good, let’s go there next.”

* * *

_“Here, why don’t you try it out?” said Doctor Light. “You copied the Search Snake and Rolling Cutter, right?”_

_Accessing the weapon combining feature was rather complicated, but after doing it again and again, Megaman was finally getting the hang of it. It wasn’t hard per say, just rather long. At least, he was already a lot faster accessing the option than when Light first guided him through the process._

_“They don’t seem like very fitting weapons,” said Megaman, equipping the Search Snake, then doing the equivalent of a copy-paste, finishing with the process of merging its code with a similar Rolling Cutter copy-paste to create a new weapon. His systems did the rest of the merging, demanding a moment for adjustments._

_“They may or may not be a good mix, your systems are doing what they see most fit to not destroy the code.”_

_Megaman looked back at the battered target at the end of the also battered room. It was a place for the Robot Masters to test some features after repairs to make sure everything was still there and functioning properly, and now Megaman was part of those Robot Masters in need of testing._

_His systems sent him a notification that the new “Search Cutter” was ready for use. He aimed at the target, his father staying behind him to safely look at the result. The shot sent a thicker, but still sharp Rolling Cutter right at the center of the target, closing and opening again like a bite, which was odd because if Rock looked at the angle he had shot at he wasn’t supposed to have reached the center. He tried again, this time shooting a bit more upwards to have it miss, the target, but it circled back and hit right next to the other cutter, biting in the target again._

_“Well, this mixed better than we hoped, didn’t it?” said Light._

_Megaman looked down at his buster, glad to have a useful feature at his side, but also fearing how destructive things could get. He had already been told that the Robot Master’s weapons didn’t do much damage against Wily’s new eight, which meant these new Robots’ weapons must be more powerful to be a weakness to one another. Combining two seemed like a very destructive option he hoped to not use, but deep down, he knew he’d end up doing so._

* * *

If Megaman hadn’t already pieced together that _Guillo_ was short for _Guillotine_ , he would have seeing the stage: blades, blades and more blades. From regular spikes to pendulum blades, anything sharp and metallic was there. Wily had been true to his theme habit; the place looked like a medieval torture room, or rather torture maze, as there were more than one room. Megaman had to admit he was glad Wily didn’t push the theme as far as having some kind of victim-like robots to shoot: no bot seemed to be missing limbs or broken, and aside from the dark and stressful ambiance, the stage wasn’t _too_ disturbing.

That was until the last room before the boss room. Protoman had been there before and knew the boss door was on a ledge upwards, but the room was small and empty, and he honestly wasn’t sure what this room was about, but he knew they should be wary about it. They came in slowly and looking around, expecting the floor to open beneath their feet, or enemies to drop from the ceiling. It was none of those, but coming from a stage themed around medieval torture rooms, maybe they should have expected this.

The walls started to close in.

Megaman had heard his own armor crack and break before. The thought of hearing it again, the thought of getting crushed raced into his head, making him dread to hear the sickening crack again. For a few seconds, it paralyzed him. He felt his brother’s stub slide under his arm, though it felt gentler than in Fog Man’s room, even if the difference was small.

“We need to get up there,” said Protoman hurriedly, looking down at his scarf. “If I could tie it somewhere—”

“There’s no time!” Megaman had a small panicked grunt, turned softer by the fear. “I should have come with Rush, he could have…”

Something dawned to him as he remembered. His brother struggling to stay up, a large metallic body in the air, a gush of water pushing…

“Pushed us up!” he exclaimed, switching his weapon for the Gush Valve. “Protoman, climb on my back, I have an idea!”

Protoman decided to get out first and ask questions later. He quickly put his shield on his back and climbed on, solidly securing himself with his complete arm around the youngest’s neck. Megaman didn’t wait another second, activating the weapon immediately in a long, powerful gush of water, pushing them upwards with a bit of a whiplash. It was unstable, and for a moment, Megaman thought they wouldn’t make it, but it was enough for Protoman to hold on to Megaman with his legs tight around his waist and grabbing onto the ledge. He lifted the blue bomber best he could, and it was Megaman’s turn to grab the ledge, pulling himself up and helping Protoman do the same. The walls were closed a few seconds after they were up on their feet. Megaman was glad to not get the extra stress of them being too close, though he still felt himself trembling ever so slightly as he tried to silence the cracking sound repeating in his mind.

“Well,” Protoman breathed out. “Aren’t you glad I got us a boss order?”

There was a joking tone to it, but Megaman was genuinely and extremely thankful.

“I’m not sure how we would have dealt with that without the Gush Valve,” said Megaman, looking down at the still closed walls. “I _am_ very glad.”

Protoman didn’t answer, staring at Megaman as if he wanted to find something in him.

“You alright, Rock?” he ended up asking.

Megaman slowly nodded. “I’m… I just need a minute.”

Protoman nodded and looked at the metallic door behind them.

“We’re in luck his weakness is Fog Man’s weapon,” he said. “Apparently it drives him mad.”

“ _Apparently_?” echoed Megaman. “You haven’t fact checked?”

“Hey, I got a good source,” Protoman shrugged. “Besides, with the rest of the order being kinda official it’s the one that makes sense anyway.”

The blue bomber straightened himself up. “I’m ready, let’s go.”

They entered the room with cautious steps. Megaman readied the Fog Strike, ready to use it the moment it would be necessary. For once, the Robot Master did not do some kind of surprise attack. In fact, Guillo man jumped from the ceiling and did a figure while in the air, landing on his legs with as much grace as a gymnastics athlete, which was very impressive for someone who had large half-moon-shaped blades for hands and big boots with similar blades at the front and back. The weapon looked more like the pendulum blades from the stage than actual guillotines, which made Megaman wonder if Wily had done any research before naming him—though admittedly _Pendulum Man_ sounded more time themed, and the whole world knew of Wily and his themes.

Protoman had his shield already up, but Megaman kept his buster down. Guillo Man did not move from his spot and instead bowed with a “hand” to his chest and the other upwards.

“Now now, boys,” he said with as much on a calm smile as the cylinder replacing his mouth could allow. “What brings you here today?”

“You know perfectly why we’re here,” said Protoman between his teeth.

Guillo Man hummed, keeping a disturbingly straight position as he thought—or pretended to think about it.

“We don’t have to fight,” said Megaman advancing a little and keeping his buster prepared, but still down. “We can end this peacefully.”

“Can we now?” asked Guillo Man. “That’s not the orders I remember.”

“If you surrender peacefully, we can help you,” said Megaman. “We can help you find another purpose.”

Protoman followed his brother close behind, not feeling this would end well. Guillo Man seemed to think about it, but if it was genuine or pretend, he wasn’t sure. The Robot Master chuckled in the end, and turned back to the wall, starting to climb it with his blades like some four-legged spider.

“And what do I get out of that?” he asked, reaching the ceiling. “You see, I quite like the place here, you have to be more convincing.”

“He’s playing with us,” said Protoman.

“I’m sure we can find you a purpose you’d like, your blades don’t have to be used for violence,” continued Megaman, ignoring his brother.

Guillo Man straightened up, and it looked like he was on his toes on the ceiling as he looked down at the two other robots.

“You say that as if it were a bad thing,” said Guillo Man, pulling out a distraught reaction from Megaman, making him chuckle. “Sorry, but it’s a no.”

Guillo Man curled up on himself and swung, detaching himself from a ceiling and doing a flip in the process, landing between the brothers and immediately going for Megaman. The Blue Bomber shot from his weapon in the Robot Master’s face. It did very little, but the fog seemed to disrupt Guillo Man enough for him to back off slightly, making him miss his blow. Protoman took advantage of the distraction to ram into the Wily number with his shield, but two blades dug in the shield instead, using it as ground to propel himself and go land behind Protoman. The red and gray robot turned around just in time to block a swing at his back with his shield.

Megaman aimed for Guillo Man, but he found out Fog Strike had a quite limited range and without the infinite reserve of weapon energy Fog Man had, he doubted he could do much to the rather speedy Guillo Man, not without any range anyway…

Except that he _had_ a weapon with range. He had half the energy left, but it would have to do.

Guillo Man was climbing to the ceiling again on all fours with his plated chest toward the brothers. The movement reminded him of a staircase scene in a horror movie he watched (and hated) once. He kept his eyes on the Robot Master, taking advantage of the rest to repeat the process he had done many times with Light.

“What are you doing? He’s right there!” exclaimed Protoman, going back at his side.

“I have something that will help, but I need a minute for it to calibrate, it will hit harder than if I shot right now, trust me.”

“Do you need cover?”

“I can move, it’s fine.”

Guillo Man ended his crawling at a corner of the room and jumped down in their direction, swinging his blades. One of them hit Protoman’s shield and the other missed by inches. Guillo Man went for Megaman again, though this time he was unable to use a weapon to defend himself and the blade slashed at his side, sending him flying and the new opening letting out sparks.

“No more pocket sand?” laughed Guillo Man, throwing himself toward Megaman.

The Blue Bomber got up as quickly as he could, but Guillo Man’s proximity made it too hard to dodge and soon enough the joint between his foot and the rest of his leg was slashed also, destabilizing him. The Robot Master turned back, expecting Protoman to arrive and was right, finding a shield coming at him and barely had time to cross his arms in an X to minimize the shock. He pushed back against Protoman in some kind of strength fight, and then slid to the side and swung at Protoman’s arm. If his arm hadn’t been already been cut, it would have been now, as the hit made a shallow dent in his side and passed where his buster arm used to be.

Megaman received a notification that “Gush Strike” was ready and didn’t wait a second before using it, the force push of the water hitting Guillo Man’s side and sent him on the floor. The water seemed to evaporate when it ended its course and touched something, creating thick vapor around the Robot Master, who soon found himself grunting and swinging around in the fog, sometimes stopping for a split second and wincing. Either the fused weapon version was more painful, or the weakness made it a lot worse for Guillo Man, but it didn’t stop Megaman from taking the opportunity, switching for the regular buster and charging a few shots sent his way. The Robot Master turned back to Megaman and ran to him, though Megaman could see the sand-y robots follow him. Megaman let go of a charged shot to his chest, but it didn’t stop Guillo Man, who swung regardless, hitting the buster shoulder and leaving a happily not too deep mark. Megaman switched for the regular Fog Strike now that the enemy was in his face and let as much Fog as he could out, emptying his weapon energy and blinding the Robot Master.

Megaman rolled away from Guillo Man, who started swinging all around him, the thick Fog remaining in his optics. Both brothers kept their distance from the robot screaming and swinging. The sight and sound made Megaman wish he hadn’t used a pure Fog Strike; it was painful to watch. He started charging to the highest level he could and aimed.

He hated this so much.

He let go of the shot, the ball of plasma hitting the center of the Wily robot, sending him to the ground. Guillo Man moved a little, but ended up curling onto himself and stopped moving, growing quiet. Megaman waited for the fog to dissipate, then walked to the still metallic body on the ground. Protoman came too, looking warily at the Robot Master, ready to jump and cover both of them with his shield, but there was no movement. Guillo Man’s head was covered with the tiny robots, leaving some kind of black sand and various microscopic holes on his face and armor. Megaman knelt down and fidgeted around the defeated robot’s helmet to remove it. It took a moment, but he was finally able to open the head and take out the I.C. chip. Protoman, who had been keeping watch still just in case, put his shield down and opened the box, letting Megaman slide the chip in with the others between the soft walls of the box.

Megaman copied the weapon—Guillo Blade—and stood back up. With the focus of the fight gone, his body ran some diagnostics and fully reactivated his pain receptors. He hissed, putting a hand on his side. His foot hurt, forcing him to put more weight on one foot. Protoman seemed alright with his hit—or hid his pain about it well—and slid his shield in his back to put a hand on his brother’s shoulder.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah, but I might need a break before the next one,” said Megaman. “Hopefully my auto-repairs and sleep mode will do the trick for this.”

Auto-repairs we more efficient for plasma shots rather than open wounds, but his system updates from Light included auto-repairs, though that was the type of update they couldn’t really test out. At least they still worked for closed wounds and regular energy shots.

“Want me to look?” said Protoman.

Megaman uncovered his side as a response, showing the wound.

“Oh, that one’s nasty,” said Blues almost lightheartedly. “We should stop by the vents and patch you up a bit, at least to cover it.”

Megaman nodded, covering the wound again and doing his best to not look at Guillo Man on the ground.

“You think one of them will agree to end it peacefully?” he asked.

“I don’t know, Wily bots aren’t the type to surrender,” shrugged Protoman. “Ready to head out of the stage?”

Megaman nodded again and the both of them teleported back to the entry point of the stage, ready to deactivate their coms and disappear in the ceiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: Guillo Man was one of the first Robot Masters I invented and i think he had quite the chnage since that time


	9. Zap Woman part 1

“You’re approaching Galaxy Man’s tracer, you should be above it in a minute or so,” said Roll over the coms.

“Gotcha,” answered Bomb Man, walking toward a clearing Roll was now familiar with.

“Is it maybe the spot marked by a branch sticking out of the ground?” said Blast Man, walking to the said branch and looking down at the position.

“Seems like it,” said Roll, looking at her screen.

“Alright boys, you know what to do,” said Bomb man, staying by Grenade Man’s side and gesturing for Blast Man to come back, letting Ground man go to the spot.

Ground Man stopped just above the branch, picked up the tracer, then jumped and dug straight down. Nothing moved for a moment, then he came back up, creating a second hole next to the one he had formed going down.

“I reached the actual trap door,” said Ground Man, walking away from the holes. “Your bombs should reach it.”

“Great,” said Grenade Man, perhaps looking a bit too forward to it.

“Just remember guys,” intervened Roll. “Stay away from the actual explosion, no one will go down there today, I want this door at least freed, and I don’t want anyone to fall in.”

“Don’t worry about it, we’ll be careful,” assured Blast Man, shooting a look at Grenade Man, who just shot back one grumpily and huffed.

The three explosion-themed robots went to the holes and placed themselves around. They shared glances, then Bomb Man nodded and they each dropped about five bombs before retreating. Bomb Man pulled Grenade Man behind a tree right before the deafening sound of the explosion rang. They looked back at their work, and saw there was quite the damage to the ground. Blast Man carefully approached the damaged area, trying to see the state of the door.

“What does is look like down there?” asked Roll nervously.

Blast Man took a few careful steps further, which gave him a good view of the trap door. It was closed, but had definitely lost its horizontal shape. If it had been thinner, they would have blown it up entirely. This meant if they dropped more bombs, they could eventually get through.

“I can see the door,” he said. “We damaged it quite a bit. I’ll send you a visual.”

There was a moment of silence on Roll’s side as she looked at the damage, the very promising damage.

“Good job, boys!” exclaimed Roll, her voice testifying of a large grin on the other side of the com. “You can go back to your units. I’ll call you back once we can send a team down and finish the job.

“How long, you think?” asked Grenade Man, hoping for a _soon_.

“I don’t know,” she admitted. “Our priority is to not lose any of you once you’re down there. The door unable to shut would be a good beginning, but unless we’re sure we won’t lose any of you, I can’t give the okay. But we’re working on that.”

“Don’t worry about it,” said Bomb Man in a soft tone (well, soft for Bomb Man). “We all know you work hard, we’ll be there when needed.”

“Thanks Bomb,” she said.

* * *

“How’s your side?” asked Protoman.

“It hurts less after a break and having it covered,” said Megaman. “Thanks again by the way.”

“Don’t mention it… and your foot?”

“I wouldn’t try and tip-toe, but I didn’t get any warnings yet, so it seems fine.”

The new stage would have been quite easy if he had an electric weapon to activate switches, but unfortunately, since it was Zap Woman’s stage, he didn’t have the luxury of an electrical weapon yet and the brothers had to go and look for manual switches to activate various platforms and various treadmill-like apparels that probably used to move material around, maybe for the factory they had to travel through to reach Gush Man and Fog Man. Megaman’s foot was sore from the running and jumping, but his systems indicated a pretty high capacity—84 percent, which was more than he’d expected—so he had no major problem with platforming. His side was another story, but if he mostly kept it out of trouble, he could fight no problem.

Megaman considered himself lucky when Protoman told him Zap Woman’s stage was reachable almost from the vents themselves: only one hallway to cross and the access was right there. Sadly, Protoman couldn’t find an entrance farther that the quarter of the stage, and Wily had mastered the arts of blocking any teleportation that wasn’t in the Robot Master’s room or the beginning of the stage (if only he had put his mind and skills to better things…) so they had quite a while to go. The main danger was falling off to the beginning of tall vertical rooms or pits that lead to who-knows-where. Most enemies were wall-canons in vertical rooms, so once they saw those, there were rather easy to dodge with a single jump and predict their shot timing. At least it made it easier to prevent any further damage to his side. The covering was rudimental: Blues had found some leather strips a while ago and had wrapped the larger ones around Rock’s waist. For the little resources they had, it was pretty good; it was thick enough to protect from the air around and just rough enough to stick to him. It was a wonder to where Blues was able to find those, but he figured it wasn’t important for now.

“Hey Rock?” suddenly asked Protoman while they were climbing a ladder. “I’ve been meaning to ask… How’s Roll doing?”

“Honestly? She’s awesome,” answered Megaman. “From what I’ve seen, she’s the head of the Robot Masters.”

“Did Light weaponize her?” hesitantly asked Protoman.

“I’m not even sure if she has a buster, to be honest,” said the blue bomber, visibly thinking about it. “If she has one, I haven’t seen it… He gave her some extra stuff to help strategizing and an armor in case she has to see things first hand, but I haven’t seen her directly fight, and she _has_ been in fights.”

“Wait, then what does she do in fights while she’s in them?” asked Protoman while stepping away from the ladder and following his brother in the next room.

“She stays somewhere less noticeable and guides everyone through. I’m guessing someone’s making sure she’s not targeted… I’ve seen only one of those happen.”

Protoman nodded slightly, but didn’t answer. Megaman wasn’t too sure of how to interpret it, and preferred not to ask in a stage. Plus, they were nearing the end and would surely be cut off soon.

The last room was a long platform attached by cables above a long and deep pit. It laid still, and was the obvious only way through the room. There was a button a few metres before and another one at the other side. He guessed this required two people to navigate. The room was abnormally silent and empty, the long pit under the cabled platform catching nothing to echo back except their own footsteps.

Megaman went in the metal basket-like platform first, quickly looking down at the all too familiar door at the other side of the diagonal line. He looked back at his brother who was pressing the button, preparing to grab a hold of Protoman’s hand if he decided to try and jump on the platform while it moved. The blue bomber had expected a whirring after pressing the button, but it wasn’t quite the right sound that made it to his sensors.

_Click_

Thankfully Protoman hadn’t tried to jump in, because he would not have made it. The platform gained momentum very quickly, and Megaman grabbed onto one of the cables to keep his balance. Fearing a trap, he readied his buster and prepared himself to jump out when the metal basket would reach the end.

The platform hit its end soon enough, and Megaman jumped using it’s momentum… but underestimated it and crashed almost face first (his hands came first) on the thick metal door. He fell on his back and stayed there for a second for his system to recalibrate his position correctly.

“You alright there?” asked Protoman from the other side, admittedly holding in a snicker.

“Yeah, just be careful on the end, it’s rough,” said Megaman, getting up. His transparent visor had a crack on the side, just in his sight, just enough to be annoying… _great_. “If they were moving things down here with this, they probably lost a bunch.”

Megaman got back up, passing his index and thumb on the new crack in his visor. It was definitely dented, though he didn’t know if it was just bad luck or if the visor wasn’t as solid as they initially thought. He pressed the button at his side and looked as the cart started to slowly get back up, so gently it was almost hypocritical. He heard the door behind him open, which was odd because he wasn’t that close to it. He barely had the time to turn around that a powerful bolt hit him straight in the open circuits on his foot and another one too close for comfort on his side. His foot numbed up, sending his entire system shaking. He was involuntarily edging close to the pit, but someone reached his collar and pulled him toward the opened door, sending another violent bolt through his body. He forced his eyes open, revealing a glitchy vision. He tried to move his buster, to shoot, but it didn’t obey him.

The last thing he saw before his systems shut down were the bright blood orange eyes of Zap Woman.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a shorter this time, I thought it would be interesting to have Zap Woman's actual fight in a separate chapter


	10. Zap Woman (Part 2)

Once the system reboot was complete, the first thing Megaman knew when regaining consciousness was the low capacity of his touch sensors—forty percent—which his actual body showed proof of with an unfamiliar numbness. It’s when he opened his eyes and saw two pale yellow feet that his memories rushed back to him and he pushed himself up with his wobbly arms, forming his buster and pointing it at the Robot Master. She looked unimpressed, cocking an eyebrow at him, that almost disappeared under her helmet in a hair-like shape. She was seated on a metal box at the center of the room, an etank at her feet, which she kicked towards him. Megaman looked at it hesitantly, tempted but fearful.

“Come on,” sighed Zap Woman, rolling her eyes. “I didn’t put acid in it. Just take it.”

The Blue Bomber was dumbfounded for a moment, but opened the can and drank some of it. The two sips felt normal, and his systems identified the drink as a regular etank. It seemed she had told the truth. He looked back up at the yellow and orange robot.

“That’s… very nice of you,” he said, pausing from the drink and hoping she wouldn’t start a fight if he was still drinking.

“I wouldn’t think so if I were you,” she said, her foot tapping on the ground. She was clearly waiting for him.

“If you say that, I assume you still want to fight?” he said. “Why are you helping me then?”

“I’m not doing this to help you!” she snapped. “I’m giving you an etank because I’m disappointed. Seriously? A simple attack from behind was too much for you? _That’s_ Megaman?”

Her voice was surprisingly devoid of cockiness. It was like Quick Man without the pride. She looked genuinely upset. Megaman tried to reach out for Protoman over the coms, but he didn’t receive any answer. He couldn’t tell if it was his or Protoman’s that were the problem. Maybe this room was to the fortress what the fortress was to the outside and blocked their coms from each other.

“In my defense, a Robot Master getting out of the room and into the stage to sneak attack is a first,” he said with a tint of humour.

She didn’t seem to find it very funny.

“Wow,” she said. “Bass was right when he called you a weakling.”

“Bass?” Megaman echoed.

Ever since he had arrived in the fortress, he hadn’t seen or heard anything about Bass, except from that limited conversation with Blues. It was like even Protoman didn’t know much, which was odd considering Bass was the loud type.

“How did Wily lose to you so many times…” she muttered, ignoring Megaman’s interrogation and crossing her arms.

“Where’s Bass?” Megaman asked.

“I don’t know, he does his own thing, not my business,” she exasperatedly sighed. “Just drink your etank already!”

He looked around quickly to get a hold of his surroundings. The room had one central machine on the ceiling that looked like those he and Protoman had to activate using switches. There seemed to be some kind of shiny brown pipes connected to it and going to the ground. The box Zap Woman was sitting on didn’t seem connected. He wondered what those were for. In this almost all white room, the pipes’ and Zap Woman’s warm palette seemed to pop out.

“Aren’t you putting yourself at a disadvantage here?” asked Megaman while completing his observations. “You’re losing all the damage you gave me.”

“Well good on you; I’m disappointed enough for it,” she stood, lightly tapping her floor again. “But if you don’t drink it, it’s your problem.”

Understanding a conversation wouldn’t get any further, he gulped down the rest of the etank and stood up. His sensors came back to their full senses, his alerts from her attack disappearing and the numbness vanishing.

Zap Woman noticed the etank’s high taking over as Megaman suddenly seemed more alert and less slumped. Electricity sparked from her buster as she started walking towards him. The Blue Bomber stayed put, preparing to dodge.“Good,” she said, cupping the crackling electricity in her hand and pulling it away from the buster. “I want to see what Wily fears.”

The first blast of electricity was thrown in Megaman’s way almost immediately. He jumped away from it and shot a few bullets towards her, which she also dodged while pulling out another crackling ball of electricity and already summoning a new one from her blaster. She threw the first at Megaman and directly shot the other toward the ceiling right in the machine. It turned on in a loud hum, and soon enough it sparked and crackled. The sound distracted Megaman just enough for Zap Woman to ram into him, tackling him on the wall and putting his back right on one of the pipes. The blue bomber felt the shocks instantly coursing through his body. He stuck the opening of his buster on Zap Woman’s middle and shot a semi-charged shot; quick, but enough to get a chunk of resistance off her armor. She backed off, pulling another shot from her buster in her hand, ready to throw it at him. He dodged the shot, but a second one came too fast for him to dodge and he was hit directly on his bad side where a small part of the leather band had slipped, sending an even worse shock through his body.

It was awful, but it gave him an idea.

He rolled away from a shot and got up quickly, leaping away from another. He changed his weapon for Guillo Blade, and started merging the Guillo Blade and Gush Valve together as a new weapon. It took a moment, the merging taking a lot from his weapon program, but both his hands turned into blades similar to Guillo Man. They were heavy, and his balance processor had to recalibrate, temporarily stopping the merging process. He gained back control quickly and charged Zap Woman, who seemed to be taken by surprise at the shooting robot running straight to her. She pulled a crackling ball of electricity and threw it at Megaman, who dodged and swung at her. She dodged the first swing by jumping back, but the second hit her on the arm, leaving a nasty dent on her shoulder and cutting off a good part of her pauldron. Zap Woman pulled a sparkling mass of electricity once again and made another one in her buster, jamming them both in Megaman’s chest. The pain was enough to have him back away. Fortunately, the new weapon, Gush Blade, was done with merging and ready for use.

He activated the new weapon, feeling something different from his hands, but nothing _looking_ different. He charged again, though this time she expected him and leaped out of the way to hit his back with another shot. He turned to her, swinging at the same time and hit her square in the chest, cutting her armor open. She seemed to be taken by a spasm and she let out a yelp. The gash in her chest sparked, though it did not seem natural or controlled. Megaman noticed there was some water running down her armor as she gathered herself again, ready to hit.

Bingo.

Megaman switched for the Gush Valve and immediately aimed at the opening and activated it. It hit directly in the gash on her chest, the impact push sending her on the floor, her body taken over by spasms. The Blue Bomber stopped the second she was on the floor, fearing too much water could damage her I.C. chip. She sat up, her blaster letting out a crackling spark, but the water led her own weapon straight back in the gash in her shoulder and her even more damaged chest from the raw force of the Gush Valve, sending her into more spasms that she tried to resist to under grunts. Megaman put away the weapons, letting his hands come back. If there was any more damage to her chest, he might be uncovering her _core_. He would rather avoid going there.

“This can end peacefully,” tried Megaman, approaching her slowly. “I can turn you off and prevent further damage. Dr. Light can repair you and we can help you find a new purpose you’d like.”

He stopped before he would reach the water, fearing she might use it to hit him, even if it would hurt her in return. She just looked back at him.

“I think you’ve seen what you wanted to see,” he continued. “Please, let me help you.”

Zap Woman put her hand on the floor and slowly pushed herself up to an unstable standing position, her eyes still locked on him. For a moment, a tiny fraction of a second, it looked like she was considering it.

“No,” she said darkly, electricity sparkling from her buster.

It made her visibly shake, and she seemed to struggle keeping control of her body, but she still pulled the crackling ball in her hand and charged. Megaman rolled out of the way and formed his regular buster, fearing too much damage from either the Guillo Blade or Gush Valve. He received the crackling ball of electricity right in the middle of his back, which gave Zap Woman just enough time to reach him and give him a hard kick, sending him face first in the still electrified pipe on the wall. Before he could push himself away, she cupped his helmet in her hands and forced his face to stay on it, putting her feet down his arms to prevent aiming. Her grip kept weakening and coming back full force, and he felt her shake and heard her circuits spark behind him, but the pain to the right side of his face started to burn and his optics showed him a warning to that area, though he wasn’t able to focus enough to read. He needed to get her off.

He needed something to hit _for_ him.

His vision started to glitch, but he switched for the Blind Strike and immediately let the weapon empty itself of more than half of its energy, until Zap Woman yelped and let him go. He immediately rolled away from the pipe, now seeing the notification of his systems lowering his pain receptors on the left side of his face. The Robot Master was stepping away, swatting at the fog that had gone straight to the gashes in her chest and shoulder. Her voice glitched, and her violent barely contained shaking turned into violent spasms once again. She summoned a crackling bolt from her buster, but the hits from the fog’s hidden robots seemed to have taken a toll, making her fall back into the puddle of water and releasing the bolt in the puddle, touching her shoulder and sending her into one last spasm before something blew with a pop, letting out sparks. When they fell, she had stopped moving.

Megaman tried to get up, but found his body weak and wobbly from the long shock he received just moments ago and couldn’t move without his shaky limb falling back. His vision showed him various warning that he did not pay attention to while he tried to get up to retrieve the I.C. chip. He was unable to crawl more than a few inches before he fell to his side. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed there, the warnings he found himself unable to dismiss blocking his internal clock. He could feel some parts being number than others, the auto-repair module starting to take over.

He heard the metal door to the stage open after a moment and he clearly recognized his brother’s voice getting closer. There was a clang and Megaman could see Protoman’s shield fall to the floor as he felt a hand on his shoulder.

“The I.C. chip,” Megaman said, though his voice was slurry. “Get the chip.”

The cheek that had touched the pipe felt rough and hard, like it didn’t follow the movement of his mouth. His last short sentence had cut off the first part of Protoman’s answer.

“…get you out of here!” was all he was able to make out from his brother.

“Too damaged…!” insisted Megaman. “Her chip, she’ll fry…!”

He insisted on the chip a few times more, accidentally drowning out Protoman once again.

“Go into sleep mode,” he heard his brother say. “I’ll get the chip, but you need to shut down.”

He nodded, but stayed awake a bit more, just enough to see Protoman get up and run to Zap Woman. His body not allowing him any more movements, he closed his eyes, and allowed his system to make him slip into sleep mode.


	11. Boost Woman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are more fragile to robot violence, I think this chapter might be more rough. Just wanted to say it.

The sight of the faintly lit vent felt reassuring for a first sight, though Megaman’s body still felt rather numb. At least most of the weakness was gone and he was able to sit up. His optics gave him a few notifications, mostly some quick messages of modules or systems back in order, which he had been able to notice already by moving.

“Morning,” said Protoman.

“It’s not—” Megaman stopped himself, paying attention to his internal clock before continuing. Turns out it _was_ morning. “How long has it been?”

“You just had one long night of sleep and auto-repairs, don’t worry,” said his brother.

“I fought Zap Woman in the afternoon…”

“And an afternoon nap.” shrugged Protoman. “No biggie.”

Megaman’s memories seemed to kick back in.

“Her I.C. chip…?” he asked.

“It’s with the others,” assured Protoman, patting his shield.

Megaman nodded, letting out a little sigh. He went to rub at his face, but his left cheek felt out of place and bumpy…

“I don’t recommend touching that,” intervened Blues. “Something was too much for your synthetic skin and it’s better to not test the results I think.”

Rock remembered getting his face being pressed on the pipe, how the pain had changed for a burning one… that must be it. He couldn’t see it, but he knew he’d need to have that fixed once he’d come back home. He was lucky his visor protected his eye; it might have damaged his optics or even impaired his vision.

“You gave me quite the scare I’ll admit,” chuckled Blues before getting a bit more serious. “What happened in there? I tried to get in, but it wouldn’t let me and our coms were cut off.”

“Zap Woman and I fought,” simply said Rock. “She was unimpressed that I didn’t see her coming from behind and gave me an etank so she’d…”

He sighed, rubbing at his temples.

“…So she’d see what Wily fears,” he finished. “In her words.”

Blues nodded, lightly tugging at the fabric on his chest as Megaman started running a full system diagnostic. Most of his systems had been restored and were at high or perfect capacity, which was surprising for such a short period of time, even if he would have chugged down an etank (which he didn’t). After all, etanks couldn’t truly repair anything and were just an alternative to charging and an instant energy boost to help out auto-repairs.

“Are you sure it’s been only a day?” asked Rock. “That’s what my clock tells me, but I’m repaired as if it was more than that.”

“Let’s say you had some help,” chuckled Blues, reaching into his bag.

He got out a syringe with quite a thick needle. Megaman had very rarely seen those. Light used those on him when he’d go back to the lab in a need of major repairs. Light said its contents were very rare, expensive, but also very efficient.

“Are those nanites?” asked Rock pointing at the mostly empty syringe. “Where did you find those?”

“Uh,” Blues seemed to hesitate a little. “… Professional’s secret?”

“I dare hope you didn’t do something too risky, Wily must be keeping those locked away, they’re so hard to produce and find…”

“I didn’t,” said Blues, tugging at the fabric on his chest. “I’m fine.”

Megaman was skeptical, but decided to no push it

“By the way, you might need this,” Protoman suddenly changed colors, his red armor turning into a pale yellow.

He reached out a hand, inviting Megaman to take the weapon, who did so.

“I tried to find out how it works, but without a buster it’s a bit hard to do,” he chuckled.

Megaman grabbed his hand, letting the weapon data copy itself before letting go, his hand slumping next to him. His energy levels were high, but he felt tired. His side was still rather painful, but it seemed better. He peeled the leather bandage to look. The circuits seemed different somehow, like if there was something lightly covering them. Maybe it was the nanites’ work.

“We should get going,” said Megaman, straightening himself and putting his helmet back on. “The sooner we’re done, the better it is.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?” asked Protoman, tugging at the yellow piece again. He seemed a bit uneasy.

Megaman only nodded, shifting from his sitting position to all fours. “Are you ready?”

Protoman only shrugged and closed the light.

“Since Boost Woman is constantly patrolling, it’s better to start heading to Detonation Woman,” said Protoman, starting to crawl. “At least we’re sure of where she is.”

“Right behind you,” said Megaman.

The way was different, it seemed like Detonation Woman was in another section of the fortress. The first ten minutes were silent and felt suffocating, as they had rarely crawled for so long.

But then something below caught Megaman’s attention. A black and gold robot walking with a purple wolf at his side. He couldn’t help, but stop. His brother noticed and turned toward Megaman with a curious look.

“It’s Bass,” said Megaman in a whisper. “And Treble.”

Protoman seemed to perk up at the second part of the remark and tried to look.

The Wily number and his support unit came to a halt when Bass stopped to look in a little tattered messenger bag for something.

“Why don’t we try this out, huh bud?” Bass said out loud, searching in the bag.

He got out a metal bar about the size of a crowbar with the edges ripped off. Treble looked excited, his tail wagging as he walked in circles around Bass.

“Stay,” Bass told his wolf with a smirk, twirling the bar in his hands.

Treble stopped pacing and settled next to the wily bot, though he remained standing and his tail wouldn’t stop wagging.

“Stay,” he repeated, throwing the bar.

Treble crouched, ready to spring up. Bass crossed his arms with a little smirk, glancing at his support unit before looking back at the stick in the distance.

“Sic ‘em,” he said, unmoving.

Treble immediately sprung up and sprinted away. Megaman couldn’t see from his spot, but he was guessing Treble had thrown himself on the bar. Bass looked with a chuckle. He had a wide, genuine grin Megaman admittedly had never seen before.

But then Treble whined, there was the sound of heavy metal falling to the ground and just like that it was gone as he ran to his support unit, the messenger bag rustling with metallic sounds.

Protoman had a little sigh. “Let’s just keep moving,” he said.

Megaman looked back, but the angle he was at didn’t allow him to see anything more. He followed his brother in the vents, wondering what the sound was about and if they were alright, though he considered the lack of buster shots a good sign.

“We’re close,” said Protoman after a while.

They heard several steps coming closer, at least four robots. The brothers stopped their progress, waiting for the steps to clear. They were pretty silent already, but Protoman found it better to not take any chances. They stopped and waited, expecting the steps to leave as they had come.

But they heard a voice. Megaman had heard it only once before.

“Check if entry point 5-7 has been used,” it said. “Look for any markings, I want to know even about the tiniest nick.”

“Boost Woman,” whispered Protoman so quietly Megaman barely heard it.

Protoman looked in front of him, seeing an opening to the floor below them, right in the area Boost Woman and the few others would be. He looked back at Megaman. It seemed like they had the same idea. Protoman crawled further and turned around after the hatch, waiting for his brother to arrive on the other side. He silently lifted the hatch, giving a full opening for Megaman to go through.

“Guillo Blade,” he quietly told Megaman. “I’ll be right with you.”

The Blue Bomber nodded and slid down. It was discreet, but he landed right in the line of sight of a weird looking Sniper Joe. Instead of the usual green or orange, this one was white and actually walking. He guessed this was those face-recognition Joes Protoman had mentioned. The advantage: the shielding wasn’t automatic and the Joe was fully open. Megaman immediately aimed and shot a few bullets, getting rid of it quickly. It grabbed the attention of the other two Joes and the Robot Master he had dropped for, Boost Woman. She turned at the sound of Megaman’s buster shot. She had goggles covering her eyes as part of her helmet, where a long leather braid stuck out, the rest of it was around her arm, and she was holding the extremity in her hand.

The two Joes at her side started shooting. Megaman charged a shot while he dodged a few blows from the Joes. Aside from their face recognition, they were nothing incredible; they could move, but stayed put whenever they attacked. Boost Woman dashed his way, raising her fist and revealing small pointy spikes on every knuckle. Megaman barely managed to dodge and released a shot he had kept for the remaining Joe on her back. He heard the Joe behind shoot, but as he tried to turn to counter it, he found Protoman had already blocked the bullet.

“Focus on Boost Woman,” said Protoman, sliding his helmet on. “I’ll get that Joe out of your way.”

“Thanks,” said Megaman, changing his regular buster for the Guillo Blade immediately.

Boost Woman had turned around already, her hand on the ground as a pivot and her feet hovering off the ground. When she was facing Megaman, she dashed, sending her straight to Megaman once again. He leaped to the left, planning to slash at her side, but it seemed she had seen him coming and instead continued on, her boots allowing her to keep most of her speed. She hit him with the braid right on his sensitive burned cheek, his position perfect for the side hit. From the outside it looked ridiculous, but with the momentum, the hit did hurt quite a bit. He remembered too late that he had switched to Guillo Blade as he attempted to grab the braid and instead saw it slide off the wrist of his buster as she backed away from him.

He expected her to come back to him with a dash, but instead found her rushing to Protoman who was still dealing with the Joe with only his shield as weapon. He had succeeded in pining down the white robot. Megaman activated his dash boots, going the same way as she was, switching for the Mega Buster to shoot at her back once again.

Thankfully, Protoman had heard her coming and turned just in time to block with his shield, though the momentum gave that hit enough power to send him flying a bit further. It wasn’t enough for Boost Woman, who dashed to him again. This time, he was ready and raised the shield… but so was she. Instead of hitting, she put both hands on the shield, pushing him further on the floor and turning him around, grabbing him by the helmet and raising him, showing his newly scraped back to the Sniper Joe. Megaman realized what she wanted to do and released his still charging shot on the Joe, but it was a second too late, and a single shot already made its way right on his brother’s back. She released the head and went to punch him, but he raised his shield just enough for only one knuckle to touch his face. She took his shield and yanked it away, throwing it against the wall.

“That’s what little moles like you get,” she said between her teeth, punching him square in the face.

It gave just enough time for Megaman to arrive with a dash, swinging at her with a Guillo Blade that had barely formed. She gasped at the impact and backed away, letting Megaman stand between her and his brother. The blow seemed to have shocked her, but he was surprised to see it didn’t seem to have such a huge effect on her. Though if Gush Valve had been efficient with Zap Woman only when it made her electrocute her own insides, maybe he had to fill a condition for Boost Woman too.

He dashed towards her, raising a blade that brushed her shoulder, removing a chunk of padding. He dashed again, solidly pinning her against the wall with a blade on her neck.

“I’ll give you one chance to end this peacefully,” he said. “It’s now or never. You surrender?”

She frowned at him, but said nothing. She raised a foot to his chest and activated her dash, sending a burning pain and a harsh push to his chest. He backed away and it was just enough for her to leap on him with her braid in her hand. She put it around his neck, pulled to trap him and started punching. Megaman didn’t wait a second and swung at her side, leaving a gash just like Guillo Man had done to him.

She stood and backed away, but her braid was still around Megaman’s neck, and now she was far enough to be out of his range.

She dashed the opposite direction of him, dragging him along and held onto her braid with both of her hands. She reached an opening in the hallway and swung, sending him head first on the wall. The crack he had received in Zap Woman’s stage was made larger in a split second and the right side of his visor shattered. The pieces fell on the ground, sending cracks throughout the left side. She dashed again, carrying him with her, the rough material sending pain through the Blue Bomber’s neck. If he couldn’t get it off, she’d only keep the advantage, he had to cut it off, and he had just the weapon.

He swung at the braid, cutting it in one hit, and his body stopped sliding after a moment. He had about half of his energy left. He pushed himself off the ground, gathering his position in the surroundings best he could. Except that Boost Woman had noticed the missing weight in her hand and head. Megaman had barely started to get up that she had already turned around, activating her dash and ramming into him, slamming his back on the wall with her pointy knee right in his abdomen.

And there it was. The crack. This loud, sickening crack from his armor when he received just one hit too much, where he felt some of his circuits crushed under the pressure. He tensed under the pain, making him shake all over. His optics glitched at the shock, coming back with difficulty after a moment. Boost Woman’s knee stayed in the inward lump it had crated as she looked back at the Blue Bomber and smirked.

“How about _you_ surrender?” she asked with a chuckle. “Who knows? I just might leave your brother alone.”

Megaman looked back at Protoman’s position where he had remained unmoving since he had gotten Boost Woman off him. He couldn’t. He couldn’t give up.

And so he looked back at her straight in the eyes, and released a quarter of the Blind Strike right in the large gash on her side. The stingers seemed to work in an instant, making her back away in alarm as she tried to swat them away. It didn’t stop any of the micro robots, giving Megaman an excellent opening. He formed the Guillo blades again and dashed on her, this time swinging at the feet and cutting off most of her feet, making her unable to stand. He kicked the cut parts away and backed off, letting her fall on the ground with a scream of pain. He put his foot on her back just for safety. One of his hands covered the badly sunken part of his armor, the other limp at his side.

“I can simply turn you off if you tell me how,” he said, the pain in his middle making him panting and shaky. “Don’t make me kill you too.”

His voice had faltered a bit on the last part. He hoped she would tell him, but he didn’t expect it.

“Do your worst,” she simply said, voice full of venom.

He sighed, switching his free hand for his Mega Buster and charged until the fifth level, just to make sure it would be over quickly.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a whisper, releasing the shot in the middle of her back. Her hands tensed at the blow, and she was gone.

Megaman fell to his knees, his body shaking and his buster hand hovering to the sunken part of his armor. He could still hear the crack. The injury was both burning and trying to numb itself down, sending waves of pain through his body.

He pushed off her helmet and looked in her head absent mindedly, one of his hands looking for her I.C. chip and the other resting on her arm, copying her weapon—the Boost Kick. He found the precious chip and pulled it out from her head, cupping it in his hands and staring.

“Blues…?” he called out quietly.

He only heard heavy breathing as a response. He turned toward his brother and saw he had lightly shifted since the beginning of the fight, now lying on his side and curled up on himself. The memory of Protoman getting shot and hit rushed back and he ran towards him, dropping to his knees once he was next to his brother, the chip in one hand, the other on Blues’ shoulder.

“Are you alright?” he asked urgently.

“It’s fine,” weakly answered Protoman. “It’ll cool down.”

Megaman went to retrieve the shield and put Boost Woman’s I.C. chip with the others before returning to his brother.

“Let me take a look,” he said, though his hands were still very shaky from the fight, the pain, and the fear.

He tried to not look at Protoman’s cheek, which was badly scratched from Boost Woman’s spiky punch. He didn’t even doubt his own face looked similar. They could deal with this later; the core issue was more important.

The red and gray robot gripped at the fabric on his chest and seemed to try and hide it with his shoulder. “I’m telling you it’s fine.”

It wasn’t very convincing, and as Megaman stared at the fabric as if he could see through, something on the ground caught his attention.

Three gray drops. The exact same color as Protoman’s armor.

Megaman never wanted to use force on his own brother, but he made an exception just this once. He curtly pulled Blues’ hand away and lifted the piece of fabric, revealing a bumpy melting chest. Several drops were running down, joining the three others on the floor, others had been absorbed by the fabric Protoman had almost desperately tried to keep on his chest. Megaman could see a glow on this chest.

This was bad.

“How could you hide this from me?” he breathed out.

Blues covered his chest again and hissed between his teeth.

“It’s been doing that for a while,” he said. “but I could control the damage or find ways to cool it down.”

“You should have gone for repairs,” said Megaman, staring at what he could see of the damaged chest.

“I couldn’t even if I wanted to,” admitted Protoman. “If our coms are cut from the outside world, so are our teleportation abilities. I tried and I just got tracked down.”

Rock knew he was right, though he hated the idea of his brother being stuck in this fortress with a burning core for so long, even if the burning was in bursts and not constant.

“Besides,” continued Protoman. “I had nanites, they helped me last more than I would have and repaired a lot of the damage.”

The younger Light bot’s head fell, his chin touching his chest plate. He sighed and closed his eyes as he took a in a few deep, shaky breaths.

“All for some stupid updates,” he said through gritted teeth. He hated it, he hated it so much. “I should have refused.”

Blues shifted a little, looking at the severe damage to his younger brother’s abdomen and found his index and middle finger lightly brushing one of the cracked pieces.

“No,” he said, pausing, as if his next words were sinking in for him too. “That hit… It would have killed you.”

Rock took Blues’ hand and gently pulled it away from the wound. As much as he hated to admit, he was right. He could still feel the blow’s violence, how far it had sunken, how hard his armor had to take to give in… Without the rebuild this would have been the one-too-many hit they had feared.

“We should head back,” said Protoman, pushing himself up with some difficulty. “Get in the vents before they find out we dropped from there and trace back to us.”

Megaman nodded, helping his brother up, though he was still trembling a little and the wounds in his stomach still shot pain through his whole body.

“I think we’ll both need a dose of nanites,” chuckled Protoman. “And an etank for you.”


	12. Detonation Woman Part 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a sort of claustrophobic part towards the end, just a heads up for those who might be fragile to it. Hope you enjoy!

“I’m telling you, if you’re doing most of the fortress work you need these more than me,” said Protoman.

“And I’m telling you, you should take your core issue a lot more seriously!” exclaimed Megaman.

There had been hardly any nanites left, as Blues had given quite a lot to Rock to repair the internal damage from Zap Woman’s fight, leaving very little for both of them. It was beginning to get harder to keep their voice quiet, as both sides were quite stubborn about who should get them.

Protoman took some time to think, staring at the syringe with so little nanites left, then glancing in his bag.

“Okay, what if,” started Blues. “I take a bit more nanites than you, but you get the etank to boost them.”

“Well I could take only the etank and you get the nanites then,” said Rock. “My auto-repairs will already be boosted from the etank and they’re pretty good.”

“Boosted nanites with your auto-repairs would be an advantage we can’t ignore,” replied Blues. “You’ll need to be repaired fast while you get there, I’ll be resting here, so I don’t need them boosted.”

“Wait, you’re not coming?”

Protoman shook his head.

“You said it yourself; it’s a bad outburst,” he said. “I need to let it cool down, or it might just have another outburst again and that would be a waste of nanites.”

Megaman thought for a moment, considering the option. He guessed with the etank it would end up with a similar amount of repairs being made.

“Alright,” he said. “Your idea seems fair.”

Blues grabbed the syringe and raised the stained yellow fabric to give himself a reasonable amount of nanites. Rock watched to make sure he’d take enough, but didn’t have to say anything. It was Rock’s turn to inject himself with what was left (good thing sterilization wasn’t as much of an important issue for robots, contrarily to humans, though he _would_ need a proper cleaning once home).

Blues tossed him the unopened etank, and started explaining the way to Detonation Woman.

* * *

It had been a while since Wily’s new “elite” robot masters had attacked the city. The last few days had been rather calm. It happened a few times when Wily would be very quiet for a few days, but he hadn’t done that since the second month Roll was in charge, preferring irregular, but close in time attacks. This quietness both relieved and worried Roll. She knew that if there we less attacks at such a critical state, it probably meant that there was some work being done wherever Rock was now, but knowing Rock didn’t have much support, she couldn’t help, but worry. At least now she knew how to get into the fortress and had an idea of its solidity, but as long as they couldn’t keep a signal, it was dangerous to send someone in.

The quiet days had also allowed her to go with Galaxy Man to retrieve some data to work on, the proximity to the fortress allowing her to pick up some interesting coding. After all, if it worked throughout the whole fortress, there had to be traces at least at an entrance. She hadn’t found too much, but with Light’s knowledge, it was definitely something to work with.

Now that there had been a break of robots getting attacked and needing repairs from Light, he and Roll had had quite some time to work on a way to get through Wily’s solid blocking. They had tried contacting both Megaman and Protoman every time they thought they had managed a breakthrough, but saw nothing seemed to get through. They tried to ping a few times too, but no result, nothing seemed to have worked. Light’s worry was starting to show. The more unsuccessful attempts they had, the more Light started to worry that maybe they had succeeded, but something had happened to Rock and Blues. That concern was also in the back of Roll’s head, but the thinning number of battles and having Gush Man—who had been a quite regular visitor—suddenly stop appearing were hints that she couldn’t ignore.

But they were getting close, she could feel it.

“Elec Man to Command Woman,” a very familiar Robot Master called. “Gel Woman and Alter Man are at the museum!”

Roll quickly stood from her position next to Light. And went to the main computer while her father continued to work on Wily’s signal blocker.

“This is Command Woman,” she said once she reached the main computer. “Are they on the roof again?”

“They’re at the door, but we’re holding them off. Freeze Man has them stuck in place and we’re trying to distract them with the search snakes, but it won’t be long before Alter Man has them out of the ice.”

She thought for a moment. Directly for the door? They had suspected before that robot attacking the museum wanted to get in, but usually kept the height advantage, but going at the door directly? It seemed like someone was losing confidence, maybe even getting desperate. Maybe if they were quick enough, they could even help Megaman in the fortress their own way.

“I’m sending Star Man’s unit to you,” she said. “I want them battered up, got it?.”

* * *

The way to Detonation Woman was long and felt a bit suffocating. He had rarely spent so long in the vents, and with Protoman’s shield on his back, everything felt heavier. He didn’t want to bring it at first, but Protoman had insisted that it would at least cover his back from an enemy he might not have seen. Megaman had defeated Wily alone several times before, but he had grown used to the presence of his brother and he had to admit it felt quite lonely.

It was long, but it led straight into her stage. There had been a slightly shorter way that led to a little bit farther into the stage, but it required to pass through the Joe’s factory, and he preferred not to pass into the factory again. He just hated it.

Megaman dropped in Detonation Woman's stage from a hatch and he dropped down just like for Boost Woman, but no one was there this time. He had no idea how far or close he was to the boss room, but at least the water stage was done at Gush Man's, so he wouldn't risk damaging his systems with some stage hazard. Megaman drank the remaining of the etank. He had gulped down most of it before leaving to boost the nanites, but he wanted to make sure he'd still have the high once he'd reach Detonation Woman.

The stage was devoid of color, everything being metallic and in shades of grey. It was also devoid of life considering no enemy seemed to come for him. It looked unfinished. Protoman hadn't warned him about anything particular based on his scouting, but had said he suspected that various hazards unactive during his exploration would most likely be active now. After the fog machines from Fog Man’s stage, the Blue Bomber didn’t doubt that fact for a second.

Protoman had been right once again, as Megaman found himself stepping on a mine and barely getting away from the explosion thanks to his dashing and the extra protection from Protoman’s shield. With the whole stage being dark and gray, the mine hadn't really stood out, but at least he knew he had to look out for those now.

He was starting to feel more confident in his steps when he heard an explosion echo through the entire stage, and suddenly the lights went out. Megaman activated his night vision and was able to continue progressing with a little more caution, but something made it uneasy, and the lights suddenly out only made the feeling worse.

His jumps on some equal platforms found themselves closer to the ceiling, enough to make Rock stop and look up to make sure the ceiling hadn't been lowering on him. He looked behind him, but the stages' length and obsession with horizontality made it difficult to notice anything, though he could swear the room was bigger before.

Every step echoed, and so did every sound in the stage itself. There were so many tiny sounds here and there, and he didn’t know which ones he should be careful with. Megaman's uneasiness did not leave him. He felt watched, the room seemed to get smaller and smaller in front of him, the complete lack of enemies was disturbing, and his middle still sent him waves of pain. He'd probably need physical repairs to fix this, and he honestly couldn't wait for them to be done; every time there was a jolt of pain and he instinctively put his hand on his middle, he'd feel the hollowness and jump.

Something fell in front of him and blew, sending him a few feet back. He pointed his buster at the smoke, but nothing came out of it. He made his way back to the spot, pointing his buster upwards, but there was only the ceiling, now just six feet away from his buster. If he squinted enough, he could see some little lines forming a square, but the square wasn't hollow. Could it be opened? How many of these were there? Would some small enemies get out from those? Were some _supposed_ to? Aside from the mines and the object falling in front of him (he guessed some kind of bomb, or something heavy enough to activate a mine), the general lack of hazard worried him, and as much as he wanted to be cautious, part of him wanted to be done with this stage as fast as possible.

Megaman guessed the walls and ceiling were very slightly tilted; he just couldn’t find another reason why the room would start to feel so small and borderline claustrophobic. If he were the size of Duo, he would be having issues moving around already, and seeing how the room only seemed to get smaller and smaller, his own shoulder pads would end up being in the way. The floor under him began to get bumpy and so did the walls and ceiling, keeping their gray appearance, but starting to feel a lot more like a cave than the unfinished stage from earlier. Protoman hadn’t mentioned this.

There were several thuds behind him. He looked behind his shoulder to see several bombs rolling on the ground. He dashed forward on the bumpy ground, but it wasn’t enough for the number of bombs behind him, which exploded at the same time, enough for his sensors to pick up an important wave of heat on his back. Protoman’s shield did a good job of blocking most of the stage’s pieces flying at him, but couldn’t stop the force push sending him forward in the irregular and tight hallway.

The irregular walls weren’t exactly smooth, scraping his forearms and shoulder pads. He got up, keeping his eyes shut due to the sudden light leaving him with a burning sensation much worse than Protoman’s light. His head bumped into the ceiling, forcing him to stay in an awkward crouch while he waiting for his optics to stop burning, though the position alone felt tiring. The etank’s high was gone for sure. Now that he stopped for a bit, he could feel an uncomfortable numbness in the sunken injury in his middle, and he shuddered as he remembered the loud crack.

He opened his eyes again and advanced further, starting to sidle and crawl in the now very tight irregular hallway. For a moment, Megaman feared he might get stuck before reaching the end, but he could see an opening a bit farther, and that was enough for him to keep pulling himself forward, though the irregular floor would sometimes touch the sunken wound in his middle, sending a jolt of pain throughout his body. The shield was starting to make his progress tedious, and his shoulder pads were beginning to scrape against the walls. If he wasn’t careful, he just might get stuck.

He reached for the shield and pulled it away from his back, pushing it in front of him while he tried to make his way through, watching his shoulder pads closely. If he had to break them to get through, he would, but he hoped to not get to that point.

He gave a good push to the shield, and it fell with a loud clang. He was very close to getting out, but also very close to getting stuck. He pulled with one hand, leaving the other glued to his side, hoping it would make him pass more easily. He made it to the opening, but it was an even tighter fit, and no matter how he tried to place himself, one of his shoulder pads wouldn’t pass in the small opening, so he was stuck one arm and head out, the rest unable to get through. His armor seemed too solid for him to break his shoulder pad by simply pulling himself out. That didn’t stop him from trying, but the result was disappointing to say the least, and every pull only made him feel more nervous about the situation.

He stopped for a moment to think. Going back was not an option, but with his shoulder pads in the way, he wasn’t going anywhere. He’d have to get rid of it, but he couldn’t detach them, and using the Guillo Blade would be dangerous considering he could just slice his shoulder too, so cutting would be a last resort. He pulled again, and felt the shoulder pad resisting, but he felt like he was getting further. If he could get himself a boost to push himself at the same time…

He equipped the Boost Kick. He had seen Boost Woman’s dash, and it was a lot more powerful than his. If it was an enhancement of his dash (and based on how odd his boots felt, he guessed it was most likely that), it just might be the momentum he needed. He pulled and dashed, and immediately he felt the difference, his shoulder pad bending under the pressure. He felt the pressure on his shoulder too. He pulled a second time and dashed again, his shoulder pad giving out in a loud popping noise, and he was immediately pushed out by the dash, leaving his pad abandoned in the hole while he fell on his back on a gray concrete floor. He stared up for a moment, glad to finally get a bit of space.

He could still feel some pressure on his shoulder. He threw a glance at it, seeing it scraped, a very small part sunken in. It wasn’t enough to have broken his armor like the wound in his middle and it didn’t even hurt, but the pressure feeling could be inconvenient. If the pain in his other wounds ever calmed down, that is. Maybe he should have waited a bit before leaving after all.

Megaman shook the thought away and rose on his knees.

“Well, let’s never do that again,” he thought out loud, picking up the shield and sliding it on his back with slightly shaky hands.

He looked up and his eyes met directly with the all too familiar Wily door. There was another fight coming. The etank’s high was gone, the stress from just a few moments ago leaving him tired. His face felt numb from his damaged cheek and the unhealed punches from Boost Woman, and his middle was still sending him jolts of pain every few movements.

He didn’t feel ready for it at all, but he had to.

He closed one eyes as the door opened, unsure if the room would be lit or not, but it was also dark inside. The robot he had been looking for was on the other side of the room, standing there, but her position didn’t shift when he arrived, buster formed. She seemed uneasy, looking away from him, a hand on her purple buster. Detonation Woman looked almost slumped, her buster pointing down. If it wasn’t of her purple armor and helmet, she’d almost look frail. She looked up at him, keeping her buster toward her own feet, her eyes talking before her mouth even opened.

“I don’t want to do this.”


	13. Detonation Woman Part 2

Megaman’s buster hand vanished.

She didn’t want to fight either.

“You don’t have to!” he exclaimed almost hurriedly, as if she would change her mind. “You can surrender and end this peacefully.”

Detonation Woman looked to the ground.

“But if I let you go, Wily will…” she didn’t seem sure.

“You can hide somewhere, shut your coms or scramble your signal,” replied Megaman. “If you give me your coordinates I can come and get you once we’re done.”

“I think… I think I’d like that,” she said, looking back at him.

He let out a long sigh. Finally, someone who stayed out of the fight.

“You need my weapon, right?” she said uneasily.

“It would definitely help if I had it,” answered Megaman. “I can copy it if I touch your arm. Don’t worry, you won’t feel anything.”

She nodded, taking a few uneasy steps forward. He closed the gap between them, and after glancing at her and giving her a reassuring smile, put his hand on her forearm.

“Did you…” Detonation Woman hesitated to ask. “Did you fight Fog Man?”

Megaman sighed. “Yes, I wish I didn’t have to, but I did.”

She stared for a moment, her expression full of concern.

“I suppose if you have his weapon it’s a bad sign…?” she asked.

“He wouldn’t surrender,” said Megaman sadly, shaking his head. “I wish he did.”

She didn’t answer, looking on the side. Megaman was surprised to see he still didn’t get the weapon yet. He waited a few seconds more, but he didn’t get any notification of a new weapon.

“Did you get it?” asked Detonation Woman, seeing how long Megaman was taking with her arm.

“No, something seems to be blocking me,” he said. “Maybe because you’re still active… not a lot of robots surrender, as you may have guessed.”

“Blocking?” she repeated, slightly rubbing her chin, “It would make sense that Wily would put that in us… Let me see if I can find a way to unblock it. There has to be a way for me to control it.”

Megaman nodded. “Thank you,” he said, looking up at her.

Her gaze seemed lost for a moment as she looked right in front of her. There was a ticking sound, then a jolt of pain in Megaman’s middle. He looked down. There was a purple flickering device right in the most sunken part of the wound. He received a punch in the face and rolled a bit farther. He didn’t lose any time and grabbed the little device, throwing it as far as he could, but it blew almost right as it left his hand, sending a burning pain in his hand. At least it had stayed away from the injury.

He looked back at Detonation Woman while forming his buster. All the softness in her face was gone, leaving her with a focused, hateful look. She pressed a button on her buster, and a dozen bombs fell around Megaman. He quickly got out Protoman’s shield and covered his chest and face just as all the bombs blew, letting out quite a bit of smoke. The sound, heat, and visual impair distracted him just enough for Detonation Woman to come from behind and kick his back, putting her foot on it to keep him down and pointing with her buster.

“Feels familiar?” she hissed between her teeth. “So naive…”

Megaman squirmed under her. Both his hand and buster were stuck between his chest and the shield. Releasing a Blind Strike would be useless and borderline dangerous; there was no way to know if the stingers wouldn’t attack his own wounds if he released them now, they were just too close to his cracked armor. The Robot Master leaned in and grabbed his chin, curtly tilting his head so he’d look at her.

“Did you really think I’d surrender?” she said, pulling harder. “That I’d just… let you go!? I know who you are, I know what you did and how far you are!”

She backed off a little, still holding his head, and shot two of the purple Crash Bomb-like devices on him, one on his bumped, naked shoulder and the other in the middle of his back. She stayed for a moment, then leaped away. Megaman barely had the time to free his arms that they blew. Fortunately, his back armor hadn’t lost too much of its solidity throughout the battles, and he received no warnings about it despite the pain, but his shoulder ended up even less covered than before, his circuits showing. His arm felt numb, but he was still able to use it, he’d just need to be careful.

“Did you see how small he is under all that fog?” said Detonation Woman, hidden by smoke from the dozen bombs. She sounded both pensive and venomous.

He started charging a shot, looking for her in the smoke, that was clearing a lot faster than the fog from a few days back.

“He was barely completed when he was activated,” she continued. “And not worth updating, Wily said.”

He saw her in the distance, pressing on the button in his buster again, and other bombs fell to the ground from traps in the wall, just like the one he had seen in the stage. He leaped away and protected his front with Protoman’s shield, keeping his eyes on Detonation Woman.

“Practically harmless,” said the Robot Master. “And yet, you took him out almost first.”

Once the explosion was done, he felt the charging shot being at the fourth level. He aimed and shot. She tried to dodge, but the shot was too large and fast, hitting her buster arm quite solidly.

“I didn’t want to fight him, just as much as I don’t want to fight you!” Megaman exclaimed.

She shot the little devices towards him, that he blocked with the shield and let explode away from him. When he lowered the shield, he found her holding one of the spherical bombs and rammed into him, jamming the bomb on his face before leaving and pressing another button.

He pushed it away, but it fell too close, and the explosion sent the rest of his visor flying, some pieces going to the floor, others going into his skin. The unprotected part of his face burned and stung.

“Well, you wanted enough to kill him, did you?” she said. “Enough to completely fry his insides, that doesn’t happen much for us robots you know.”

He remembered Fog Man being unable to move while still being conscious. He hated to think of it, he hated the fact he did that.

“If you and your line mates had surrendered, we could have ended this peacefully,” he said. “It’s not too late for us both to stop this fight!”

“You know, if you came to me first, I might have suggested a little deal,” she laughed darkly. “The second you killed Fog Man, there was no going back from any of us.”

He rolled away from a purple device and got up. This wasn’t working, he needed to try something else. Her weakness was the Zap Bolt, but he didn’t expect it to hurt much just by hitting her with it. Her armor was clearly made to absorb more, and seeing how her own explosion didn’t affect her much even if she remained rather close, he guessed she could stand a lot. He needed to think about it, which was hard against someone who seemed to have thought of everything in advance, from a general strategy to using his reluctance towards fighting.

A purple device landed on the leather strip on his foot just as a spherical bomb landed near him. He leaped away, but he wasn’t able to remove the smaller one that blew, tearing off the strip and re-opening an old wound, making it hurt even more than when Guillo Man made the gash. He accidentally landed on that foot, forcing him on his knee. If he could get rid of at least the purple devices, he’d keep his attention less divided and be more efficient. She seemed to shoot them out directly form her buster. He just wondered…

He switched for one of his merged weapons, the Gush Strike, and aimed just as she aimed for him. He shot, leading a long and powerful gush of water right inside her buster. The fog seemed to focus on the opening of her buster too. She stared at the fog around for a second, then whipped it around, trying to get the stingers away and looked back at Megaman, her eyes sending him a murder glare as he changed for the Zap Bolt.

“Fog Man’s weapon?” she said. “That’s just low.”

She ignored the fog around her buster, as if she knew it was useless to try and get her stingers away and a rounder bomb fell in her hand, growing into it. She threw one at Megaman and formed a few others around her, letting them grow on their own.

The Blue Bomber knocked it away with the shield before it could explode on him and shot a bolt, aiming for the buster. It missed, but hit one of the bombs behind her. It exploded, making her flinch and look behind her, startled by the explosion. It seemed like that explosion wasn’t supposed to happen, and the untouched bombs remained unaffected. That was good to know, but he had to keep some of the Zap Bolt’s energy. Until he was certain of what was most efficient, he preferred to keep it.

He remembered the fight with Zap Woman and how the weapon had been effective only when her circuits showed. He wondered if it would be the same for Detonation Woman. Only one way to find out, and he had an idea on how to test out his theory. He started merging Zap Bolt and Guillo Blade as he used his regular buster to land a few hits while trying to guess which bomb she would activate and try to get away from those. He had taken and given a few hits when he was notified of Zap Blade being ready. He decided to ignore the pain from his foot and make a Protoman out of himself and charge, ramming into her using the shield. Her armor absorbed most of the damage, but he felt her flinch.

He switched for the new weapon and without waiting another second, slashed at her side, that had less armor. He felt her shake on the other side of the shield, and she pushed him hard, sending him on the ground, and threw a bomb at him. The shield blocked most of the damage and he was back up in a moment, putting more weight on his uninjured foot. He switched for the regular Zap Bolt, shooting at the small gash he was made. She hid her pain well, but he could see her flinch.

Detonation woman tried to shoot one of her Crash Bomb-like devices, but her buster didn’t seem to obey her and she started looking around for which bomb to blow instead. Megaman went at her again with the Zap Blade, but she hadn’t been distracted in the slightest and replied with a well-placed kick to the face. The Robot Master, seeing there were no bombs close enough to be worth blowing, decided to go for a more physical approach, but Megaman wouldn’t let her get close. He switched for the Gush Strike once again, and aimed for her face, then moved to the injury on her side. She grunted and was blinded for a moment, just enough for the Blue Bomber to go back to her with the Zap Blade and slash at a leg and an arm, leaving quite big gashes.

She grabbed him by the helmet and pulled him to her side, right where the stingers were still active, and he started to feel some go for his face instead. He swung at her back, and it seemed painful enough for her to let him go. The electrified blade seemed to leave her with a light spasm, and she reached for the button on her buster.

Megaman noticed the water had reached two of the bombs close to her. He switched for the Zap Bolt and shot at the water, electrifying the bombs and forcing them to blow up on their owner, making her fall forward in a heavy thump.

He remained cautious, expecting her to get up at any moment, but she didn’t and remained perfectly still. It seemed like once the armor was pierced, she didn’t have the most resistant circuits. He was just glad it was over. His painful foot left him with a limp, his middle felt worse and he could tell pieces of his visor were still stuck in his face, he needed some rest, and a pair of eyes to help clear his face.

But first, he needed to get her chip and weapon. That was top priority. He limped over and crouched, putting his hand on her buster to take her weapon. Nothing came; it was still blocked.

The Robot Master’s eyes snapped open and she grabbed his arm, forcing him on the ground and took the bomb right next to her with her buster arm, jamming it right on Megaman’s sunken wound.

“You are _not_ getting away that easy,” she hissed.

Before he could do anything, the bomb exploded both in her hand and his wound, sending a wave of burning pain through his body, so strong he opened his mouth to scream, but wasn’t able to make any sound. He went limp, and Detonation Woman backed away, her buster arm gone and the stub and letting out sparks. Megaman charged a Zap Bolt and shakily raised it, aiming for the arm, and let go.

The shock went through her whole body, sending her in violent spasms. Bombs around the stage blew up, others in the walls did the same, sending debris in the room barely not collapsing onto itself. A bomb at her feet blew, sending her farther, and when the smoke cleared after everything exploded, she was on the ground, her blank eyes were staring back.

Megaman remained unmoving for a moment, trying to fight off the pain that made him grit his teeth, shake and hold back yelps. He had to get her chip… but every movement hurt. Everything the nanites had repaired had been blown open, and he found himself unable to move.

But he couldn’t let her chip fry itself.

He pushed himself up with a sharp hiss, and made his way to her still body. He slumped and pulled on her helmet, though his trembling hands didn’t have a lot of strength. She had hair in a bun, and he wasn’t sure where to open to look for the chip. He felt around for a bit, his hands shaking so violently from the pain he knew he’d miss the opening at least once. He found it after a while and opened up her head. He had to stop to put his hands on his knees and breathe to try and steady himself. It didn’t work much, but it was better than nothing. He went back to work, trying to locate the chip with his hands. He found it after a moment and pulled it out, letting out a sigh at the object in his hand.

The relief that washed over him also sent a wave of weakness throughout is body and he fell on his side. He put his hand on the shield, and his fingers lost their grip on the chip, letting it fall on the shield in a quiet clatter.

He needed to get the chip in the box. He tried to stretch out his hands, but it only sent a wave of pain through his body, making him curl up on himself and instinctively bring his hand to his middle, though touching it made it worse, making him violently shiver from the pain. It paralyzed him, he couldn’t move, and he couldn’t bear to imagine in what state his body would be if he didn’t have the updated armor. He doubted he’d still be alive to feel pain even if he did somehow survive Boost Woman.

His vision filled with warnings again, but his attention was on the lone chip on the shield. He needed to put it in. He tried to stretch out his hand, but a new wave of pain made him gasp, and his hand fell heavily. His optics glitched, his middle burned, and he saw a new notification warning him of an emergency shutdown. He barely had the time to read it that his optics glitched again, and he felt his systems give in, his vision going dark.


	14. Return to the Factory

The first thing to meet Megaman’s line of sight was an unopened etank. He pushed himself up, his eyes darting to Protoman’s shield.

The I.C. chip wasn’t there.

“No, no, no, no—”

He reached for the shield, opening the box… only to find Detonation Woman’s chip with the others. He sighed and slumped. With the relief, came back the pain, though it was a tad milder than before. At least he could move a little without holding in a scream. His clock indicated he had been off for a few hours now, his auto-repairs must have activated despite the shutdown. He looked at the etank and was surprised to find a full syringe of nanites next to it. He considered taking them, but he didn’t want to accidentally have their work undone again. It would be better to use them when he was back in the vents and able to rest while they worked. He considered to also keep the etank for later, but trying to stand made him hiss in pain. He’d need a boost and a high to go find the entrance to the factory and make his way back, since he couldn’t go back up the vent he dropped from.

He looked around carefully. That etank and nanites did not appear by themselves, and if it had been Protoman, he would have stayed around unless it was unsafe, or at least gotten his shield back before leaving. Part of him was wary of the items, but whoever had come had also put the I.C. chip in the box, so they couldn’t be too bad, could they? He opened the etank and chugged all of its contents, putting his hand on Detonation Woman’s arm to get her weapon before getting up. He’d make sure they would all be rebuilt, or at the very least given the chance to be.

It’s when he tried to teleport in the stage area that he realized his coms had been off the whole time. Maybe that was why no enemies had attacked in the stage, though he doubted that was the reason. He activated his coms again, and was surprised to see someone had tried to contact him two times in the short while he was out of the vents. Protoman and…

Roll.

He was tempted to contact back, but part of him was afraid it wouldn’t be her on the other end. After the room full of spikes with the hounds and the factory, Wily passing _something_ as Roll didn’t feel too far-fetched. He preferred to make sure Protoman hadn’t seen something like this happen before calling back, just to be sure. He tried to call back Protoman, but he didn’t answer, though with the amount of time they spent with their coms off, it wasn’t surprising.

He teleported away, getting back to an area a bit further than where he had dropped from the vents and looked for a certain wall panel Protoman had mentioned. He had to feel the wall, but found what he was looking for and soon enough his coms were off again and he was back into the factory. He preferred to not look at the lines too much, knowing the discomfort he would feel again. He was glad he didn’t have to go as deep as he did for Gush Man and Fog Man.

He recognized the place he and Blues had first dropped in the factory and stood on that catwalk’s railing to push up and look. He almost gasped seeing Gel Woman and Alter Man sitting _right there_ in his line of sight. Luckily, they weren’t paying attention anywhere near his location and hadn’t noticed him. Megaman went back down, abandoning the idea of going up. He considered trying to find another place to exit and get back in the vents, but there was a rather major problem: he had no idea of where he was going and knew of no other entry points to the vents from the factory, and exploring unfamiliar territory while damaged what a bad idea.

But then the Robot Masters were damaged too… Megaman had only seen a glimpse of them, but the cuts and scorches didn’t lie. They were hurt, he had a shield, an etank’s high, the weapon they were most likely weak to, and he now also had the surprise element. This might be his only chance to strike where he’d stand a chance in his condition. With physical repairs being so necessary now, he could only see his body getting more damaged as time went on. He put some weight on his injured foot, deciding to start with the basics. The pain was still there, but a lot more bearable. If he didn’t fall too hard on it, he would be fine. He took a deep breath and started charging a level five shot. He was given a chance, he had to take it. He couldn’t wait for them to get repaired and have the advantage again, or give more trouble to the city. He got back on the rails, put his hand on the tile and waited for his shot to charge.

Once he felt he couldn’t get any more energy, he pushed up and shot the first of the two in his sight: Alter Man. The hit robot was projected a bit further. Gel Woman jumped when her companion was shot and her head snapped back towards Megaman getting out from under the tile and already charging another shot. His hurry and sudden push made the tile fall the other way, making a hole straight back to the factory. If he was careful, he wouldn’t fall back. Gel Woman sprung up, her hand claws already turning and creating gel as she backed toward Alter Man, a human-shaped hand reaching for his shoulder. She shot the formed gel at Megaman, successfully covering his charging buster, but surprisingly doing extremely minimal damage. Megaman was able to push the gel off his buster easily, giving just enough time for Alter Man to get back up with his partner’s help. Her hand retracted, giving place to claws. Megaman let go of a level four shot, going for Gel Woman this time. She backed away behind her partner, dodging just in time, and Alter Man shot the odd fire shield Megaman had seen way back at the museum with Roll.

The Blue Bomber leaped away from the flaming shield and shot a few regular shots in their direction, mostly blocked by the fire shields sent by Alter Man. Megaman received a hard, frozen ball of gel right on his chest plate, making him topple down and fall through and back on the factory’s catwalk. He got up again and got away from the opening, expecting them to come down to continue attacking. He switched for his new weapon—Remote Bomb—and waited for them to come and get the bomb at their position. He heard their steps above, but they were slower than expected. Megaman feared the bomb might explode on him, but it didn’t show any signs of exploding, and he remembered none of them were timed back in Detonation Woman’s room. He glanced at his buster and saw a button just like the previous Robot Master had. The steps above stopped at the hole, and Megaman threw the bomb at an angle before clicking, making it explode at their feet and have the thin floor break underneath them, sending them both on the catwalk.

Megaman threw another bomb, but as it was about to reach them, Alter Man formed an ice shield, making the bomb blow the wall, sending pieces of ice flying. Alter Man covered Gel Woman, who was forming some gel, and received all the ice shards, which didn’t seem to affect him much. Fortunately, the shards weren’t like Megaman’s visor and even though they stung, the damage was minimal, though it did make him flinch and double over as some pieces touched his middle, which he hadn’t dared to look at ever since he had come back online. He hoped he could hurry this up. The bomb had left quite the damage on the catwalk. It still stood, but a small part of it was gone.

Megaman glanced down with a hand on the rail and saw the numerous floors and decided to not take any chances with Protoman’s shield and keep it on his back. He switched for the Mega Buster, fearing explosions might send them down and break the fragile flawed factory.

He was distracted just long enough to receive a frozen gel ball on the hand, bringing down the railing too. Megaman felt his balance slip and his body falling. He switched for the Boost Kick and dashed in the air, the momentum just enough for him to reach the closest thing, a conveyor belt with some lone Sniper Joe boots. The two Robot Masters above looked down at him, and the Blue Bomber saw some gel bubbling and being thrown in his direction. He dodged it in time, letting the boiling gel starting to melt off the conveyor belt. He looked back up at them. He didn’t want to damage the place too much, but he couldn’t let them have the height advantage. He switched to the Remote Bomb and threw it at their position on the cat walk, blowing it up as soon as it was close enough. Gel Woman barely made it out while Alter Man was projected in the same direction as she was, leaving a detached part of the catwalk fall down, the sounds echoing up telling them it had hit quite a few things on its way down, and not just another layer of the spiralling catwalk.

Gel Woman helped her partner back up as Megaman threatened to throw another bomb. He glanced at the damaged conveyor belt, part of him telling him it might snap soon. He had to go back to the catwalk quickly. They started making their way down to a slightly safer place on the catwalk, though it started to look like Gel Woman was helping him around. Megaman feared they might teleport away, ruining his chance and decided to throw another bomb in their direction. If he could concentrate on Alter Man and force Gel Woman to work alone, he would probably have a better chance.

Other pieces of the cat walk blew and fell down as Gel Woman leaped away with one of Alter Man’s arms around her shoulders. She shot another boiling hit towards him, and he leaped away, letting it damage the conveyor belt even more. Megaman went back to his regular buster, shooting at them at a distance until they were hidden by the center of the high underground room, where most of the factory work was happening. Megaman charged a shot and went back to the lower part of the catwalk thanks to the Boost Kick, where he found several puddles of bubbling gel. He jumped over them as soon as he could, the catwalk falling behind him as he heard a loud snapping noise from his previous position. He turned a corner and was greeted by a frozen ball square in the chest and some regular gel in his face. The second hit made him jump and he shot a level five charged shot where he remembered seeing them. He was blinded by the gel, but did hear a yelp and a metallic thump, making the catwalk under him shake. He could feel the whole place rumbling, some odd sounds reaching them, and more snapping.

Megaman got the gel off his face with his hands, though most of it stuck to them and his cheeks, but at least he could see properly. He was surprised to see the duo still there, right where Gel Woman had attacked. It seemed his idea had accidentally worked: Alter man didn’t move, his eyes glowed very weakly. The sparking factory let Megaman see Alter Man’s side was badly scorched, some circuits showing until half of his leg. Gel Woman’s head snapped back up when Megaman approached and one of her claws turned back into a hand. She showed her empty palm to Megaman in an alarmed gesture. She showed her three other claws, devoid of any Gel, and she insisted on her non-threatening hand movement. He lowered her buster, and she lightly lowered her hand too, turning it so it looked more like an invitation to grab onto it, and she pointed at her forearm. Megaman remained cautious, the fight with Detonation Woman still fresh in his mind. He kept his buster ready, preparing for some kind of surprise attack, but touched her forearm and saw the new weapon notification—Gel Blast.

Gel Woman was _surrendering_.

It suddenly hit him. He hadn’t even given them the chance to do so and had just… attacked. They had already been badly hurt, maybe they would have, and it could have gone peacefully. He realized they had been mostly on the defense this whole fight. They had been the least willing in this whole fortress and he hadn’t noticed. Thanks to him Alter Man was almost deactivated, his position reminiscent of Fog Man at the very end of their battle. He wanted to fix it. He had to.

Megaman knelt in front of Gel Woman and got out the syringe of nanites.

“Inject those once you’re in a safe place,” he said.

Gel Woman seemed to understand what they were and nodded. She raised one of Alter Man’s arm and showed it to Megaman almost like a peace offering, even though peace was technically already done. He took Alter Man’s weapon and retracted his hand.

“Do you have anywhere safe to go?” asked Megaman. “Wily won’t be too happy to know you let me go.”

Her eye shaped changed slightly, the soft glow forming a kind of sad frown. She seemed to think for a moment, then nodded again, pulling Alter Man up so he’d sit instead of lie down.

The rumbling from the deeper parts of the factory got stronger and Gel Woman looked around in alarm. There another snap in the lower levels, and various parts of the factory were sparking.

“If the fortress starts collapsing, go outside and I’ll try to find you once we’re done with Wily,” he said hurriedly. “We’ll repair you two, get to your safe place and hang on, alright?”

Gel Woman glanced back down at the nanites he had given her and nodded. The catwalk shook; something was definitely not right, and Megaman feared an explosion. Gel Woman put her arm around his shoulder, and before he could jerk away, she had teleported the three of them just outside of the entry point to the factory. She let him go and teleported away again, bringing Alter Man with her and leaving him alone in the otherwise empty hallway. The floor under him felt shaky too. He equipped the boost kick and dashed in mid-air to make a double jump, giving him enough momentum to reach the vent and slip into it. He covered the hatch and started crawling back in the slightly familiar path, making his way back towards the little home Protoman had made thanks to his night vision. It didn’t take long before he heard a loud explosion from behind him echo through. It seemed like they had damaged the factory just enough to make at least some part of it blow. If he was lucky, Wily would send a lot of his face-recognition Joes down to try and find him in hope the factory had brought him down. Maybe he could rest a little.

He finally arrived in the known spot, his and Protoman’s little home… only to find all of the walls darkened by plasma shots and scorch marks. The blanket had burned, the bag had been left abandoned, and the light had toppled over and broken. There had obviously been a battle in here, and he had missed it. He hurried out of the familiar area, looking for a hatch to get down to and activate his coms.

_Please, pick up, please, have him pick up._

He dropped down the hatch where he had previously seen Bass and Treble and activated his coms immediately, calling Protoman, but he received no answer, nothing came through.

He could only imagine, Protoman taken by surprise. Protoman, who had no buster and no shield. He had pinged him, he tried to call and warn, maybe ask for help and Megaman had missed it.

And now his brother was missing again.


	15. Wander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just want to say, some of the hounds from the first chapter will get shot. For those who really don't like any suffering to any type of animal, I wanted to leave a little warning. Enjoy

The lack of answers from Protoman sent him in a panic. Where was he? Was he alright? How could he be alright? He didn’t even have his shield, and with his core acting up, how could he defend himself properly or even run? He just couldn’t!

Megaman looked around, shutting his coms again. The vents weren’t safe anymore. Honestly, it was a surprise he hadn’t been attacked when he arrived in their previous safe spot; a welcome party would have been quite efficient in his current state. He didn’t know where to go; he was out of the linear path Wily usually laid out for him in his previous fortresses, he didn’t know how to get to them, and the one who did was nowhere to be found. He was completely and utterly lost. At least the Robot Masters were out of the way, but the face-recognition Joes were still here, and there certainly would be more enemies patrolling now that their usage of vents was known. He had lost the advantage.

He considered activating his coms again, and hesitated to contact Roll. She hadn’t been able to contact him before, what if it was a trap…?

But then what did he have to lose? Protoman was gone, he had no safe shelter, no nanites, the etank’s high was gone, and no matter where he’d go, he’d have to shoot his way through anyway. Whether it was a trick from Wily or not, he was still lost. He called Roll.

It rang, and rang… Maybe he shouldn’t have, it was probably a bad idea—

“Rock?”

This was definitely Roll’s voice. He was so relieved that if it hadn’t been of the dangerous situation, he might have just curled up right there and try to ignore it all even if just for a few minutes.

“Rock, can you hear me?” said Roll, receiving no response.

“Yes, it’s me, I’m here,” despite everything, he felt his throat tighten a little. It had been too long.

He used to power through Wily’s schemes in a few days at most. Down here with all the sleep modes, shut downs and the exhaustion he didn’t even remember how long it had been since he was on the surface. He didn’t know how Protoman had done it, being down here for so long.

“Dad, we got through!” he heard Roll exclaim, before she focused back on him. “Are you alright? Are you hurt? Teleporting still seems to be blocked, but I’m sure there’s a way we can bring Rush in to get you supplies.”

Rush’s coms were always on, they had never been deactivated, Rock didn’t even know how to turn them off if they even could. It would be dangerous to have him come.

“It’s better not,” said Rock, listening in case he’d hear steps come closer. “Even talking right now is risky, Wily’s been tracking us through coms.”

“ _Us_ …? Did you find Blues?”

“Yes, but I lost him. Our safe spot got under attack while I was out for a Robot Master and—and—” his limbs trembled at the thought. “He hasn’t been answering my calls, and I know it’s normal because it’s dangerous to keep coms on, but I can’t—I don’t know if he’s alright, and in my state I don’t know if it’s safe to look for him, and—and—his core…!”

“Rock, please, calm down,” said Roll with the most reassuring voice she could muster. “If Blues was able to have a safe spot in this fortress for as long as he has, I’m certain he had other resources, I’m sure he’s alright.”

Megaman sighed. He hoped she was right.

“I’m lost,” he admitted, and for a moment he hated how childish he sounded. “I’ve never been in this part of the fortress before and I think I’m out of the normal track… My armor’s sunken in after fighting Boost Woman. In short, if you managed to have some kind of map, I could really use it right now.”

“I could attempt to use your signal to try starting making a map… But are you safe enough for it? Is there any Robot Masters that could attack you now?”

“No, I’m done, but I wouldn’t be in any state to fight Wily right now, so what’s the risk factor for the mapping?”

“If you’re being tracked the moment your coms are on, it might be too risky for now,” she hummed, trying to think of something. She didn’t have a safe way to map and guide him, or any way to send Rush with supplies and e-tanks (or nanites, if Megaman admitted he wasn’t in a good state to fight Wily, it was surely bad enough to send those).

“Is there anyway I could send Rush to you?” she asked. “If I find a way to shut his coms and have him fly down to you?”

“Probably, though—” he cut himself off. There were steps coming his way, lots of them. “I have to go.”

“Wait, Rock—!” he wasn’t able to let her finish, as he had already turned off his coms.

He climbed back into the vent using the Boost Kick, but stayed close to the hatch. They all knew where he was and the vents weren’t safe, but if he could think properly, he could make a break for it, maybe find a safe place to stay while his auto-repairs worked, maybe even find a reflective surface to finally rid his face of the visor pieces he hadn’t touched yet. He saw a few face-recognition Joes along with regular Joes come to the spot he had been a few seconds earlier. It seemed Wily had sent quite a few of them. Now that his top robots were gone, Wily would probably have to do quantity over quality. He waited for them to show up, then switched for the Remote Bomb and threw it down at the center of the little army after him, hitting the helmet of a regular Joe. He made it explode the second it started making its way to the ground, then switched for the Blind Strike and used it to thicken the smoke. He jumped down just as the joes started aiming at the vent. He had to switch for the Boost Kick quickly, trying to use the little remaining of the weapon energy to gain a more comfortable distance where he could use his regular dash and run. He didn’t like running, but every movement shooting pain to his foot, middle and face reminded him he didn’t have a lot of options, and fighting all of the Joes at once wasn’t one of them.

He heard blasts coming for him and steps getting close, but also robots being shot, diminishing the steps. He looked back. The unmoving regular Joes seemed to have accidentally shot the few Joes trying to run to him, and Megaman was quite glad their aiming was arbitrary when they did shoot in his general direction. Maybe they’d get rid of themselves before getting rid of him, at least for the regular Joes, the face recognition ones seemed to be waiting at the back, preparing to come after the regular Joes were done shooting. Perhaps they somehow knew about their regular counterparts’ aiming.

He arrived at an intersection, he could go either right or left. He darted left, but saw three shapes he would have preferred to not see. Three dogs, a perfect updated mix between Rush and Treble.

What were _they_ doing there? He had never seen any out of the very first room. Weren’t these hallways off limits?

They jumped at him on sight, and Megaman used his last Boost Kick to turn on his heels and go right instead, only to meet three other hounds coming his way. He was surrounded. He was stuck at the centre, with the Joes on the one side and the dogs coming for him at the two others. He had to think and quickly. He had to keep the hounds as far as he could, but would also need to attack the Joes now. If he wanted it to be efficient, he’d need a weapon that knew where to hit.

He equipped the Gush Strike, and shot at the hounds on either side, then the Joes. It stopped the dogs in their track as they started scratching their ears and shaking their heads. It seemed the Blind Strike’s robot were just as efficient; this gave him a chance. It was enough to finish off some Joes that were coming for him, and those at the back decided to stop shooting and come closer. The Gush Strike hadn’t made it far enough to hit them. He switched for the remote bomb, but he didn’t have much left, maybe one or two bombs, better make it count. He waited for the Joes to get closer all while glancing at the hounds to make sure they didn’t attack him. When they were just close enough, Megaman threw the bomb at them and made it detonate before it would even touch the ground. The rest of the regular Joes were caught in the explosion, but only one of the face-recognition Joes was hit, taking off its shield arm, but leaving the buster intact. It didn’t seem to react much, still using the exact same pose to pause and “block” anything coming. Megaman finished the job with the Mega Buster, but the hounds seemed to slow their scratching before he could try and aim at the others.

He aimed at one of the hounds’ ears, and it seemed to make it flinch. He hated hurting dogs, but _they_ weren’t programmed to care. It wasn’t enough to stop it though, and soon all the dogs were alert again.

Three hits on his side sent him on the floor, shooting pain through his middle, the plasma burning right through. Megaman couldn’t help but double over, hissing. The Joes, he had turned his attention away for too long, they must have noticed. He tried to get back up, but he was too slow; one of the hounds was already on him. He changed his regular buster for the Zap Blade, cutting through the dog’s metallic body, and it shook a little before jumping away with a whine. Why did it have to be dogs? He hated shooting at robots period, but their resemblance to the support units were just enough to make it all feel worse.

There was another on him almost immediately, but it wasn’t enough and all but one were still standing and ready when the weapon’s energy had depleted. What made it even worse was that the face-recognition Joes had gotten close again. He tried getting up, but a bite on his arm made him hiss, and the jolt of pain went through, going back to his middle and burning once again. He shot at a hound, but missed, and soon he was tackled again and tried to keep the sharp teeth off his face with his forearm. Sadly, there was still more than one and he felt something digging in his leg and the burn of plasma shots on his feet. Every move shot pain through him, he didn’t know how to effectively eliminate the hounds and he couldn’t even move without risking to get teeth sunken in his neck. It was too much to process. He had to get them off and fast, sacrifice efficiency for speed.

He emptied the rest of the pure Blind Strike around him, and felt the hounds let go of him. He could still feel the burning of plasma, hear shooting and the hounds growling and barking, but also… whimpering? Couldn’t the face-recognition Joes aim better? Did the fog reach that far? He couldn’t see farther than his nose with the quantity of fog he had let go and the proximity of it. His wounds were stinging. The little robots didn’t know the difference between him and the others… right…

He painfully pushed himself up and tried to get the fog away from his eyes, aiming at nothing with his buster. Everything burned and hurt, and his foot gave under him the second he was up. He heard a charge, got a hit of plasma square in the chest and was projected back on the floor. His vision gave him an emergency shutdown warning.

“Not again…” he breathed out, trying to push himself up.

It was the effort too much and the view of the white Fog grew black.

* * *

Roll had been pacing back and forth in front of the main computer, waiting for a call from Rock. She had tried calling back, pinging him, trying again later, but nothing reached. She knew he must have turned off his coms, but with all the new information she had gotten in this short call was enough to worry her. Light had tried to convince her to go for a charge while he’d keep watch and wake her if Rock contacted them again, and she had accepted, but she found herself unable to go into sleep mode and was back up thirty minutes later.

Light came back in the room with a cup of coffee. The too brief call with Rock seemed to have worried him just as much.

“Nothing new I presume?” he asked, sitting back in his chair.

“Radio silence,” she answered.

They both remained in silence for a moment, Light’s leg lightly bouncing from the stress and Roll still pacing and stopping to look at the computer once or twice as if a notification would suddenly appear.

The com tracking, the numerous serious-sounding injuries… Something was very wrong and they had no way to monitor anything. The wait was awful. She remembered Rock’s hasty leave, how tired he had sounded when she first heard him… She couldn’t begin to imagine how he looked. And now he had presumably been under attack and there was no way to know how many bots had been after him, or how powerful, if the fight was over, or if Rock was still awake. Roll hated it, she had to do something.

She stopped to look at the computer another time, but left the notification screen and went to her maps. She went to look at the spot where Rock’s signal had been, and it was like when they lost Blues all over again, except this time there wasn’t the reassuring sight of Rock on the table and thinking they’d finish the rebuild quickly…

But this time, the city wasn’t under attack almost constantly, and all Robot Masters were in good shape, some even as good as new, now that Light had gotten a bit more time… and she knew they could get in an unauthorized section of the fortress if they followed Rock’s last signal, and how close they had been to getting through the entrance Blues had disappeared in.

It gave her an idea. She called Magnet Man and Centaur Man.


	16. The Wily Stage

When Megaman went back online he saw nothing except the usual boot-up diagnostics. His system showed the initial report, telling him things he already knew. His clock showed him he was at least a day later.

Roll must be worried sick.

He tried to get up, but his arm touched something sharp, and it reminded him he hadn’t even looked at his surroundings yet. He activated his night vision, only to see the very bumpy, borderline spiky walls at either side of him. He sat up carefully, now aware of the tight space. He hated it, it felt like they would start to close in at any second, just like in Guillo Man’s stage. He was finally able to be fully seated and he almost jumped seeing someone else on the narrow wall in front of him.

Blues, with the yellow piece tucked on his shoulder, fully exposed his damaged chest. The melted parts seemed to have grown a bit more solid, though with how much the metal had thinned it was possible to see the very fain glow of his core through his chest. His body had new scorches and burnt marks, his hair was mousy and his eyes were closed. If it wasn’t of his core glowing, Rock would have thought he was dead, or at least in a shut down with very little time left. He made his way in the very narrow space to his brother and gently shook his shoulder, hoping it would be enough to wake him up. He didn’t know the extent of the damage and feared hurting him with a shake alone.

“Blues?” he quietly called. “Blues!”

It seemed to be just enough, as the older robot opened his eyes and slowly reached for the hand on his shoulder.

“Hey,” said Blues. “How’s your middle?”

“My middle--?” Megaman scoffed. “I should be asking about your core right now. And I am.”

“It’s fine, I’ve been resting here for a while.”

Megaman looked around the narrow “room” again.

“Where are we?” he asked. “It’s not a prison or something, right?”

Now that he thought of the possibility it just made him feel more anxious.

“We’re fine,” said Blues. “It’s an emergency safe place I found.”

“ _Safe_?” echoed Megaman. “It doesn’t look very safe here.”

“That’s kinda the point, no one thinks we’d be here,” he pushed himself up with his hand, but his chest glowed a little brighter and he hissed. “It’s inconvenient, but better than nothing. Not that we _need_ to move in the vents anymore anyway.”

“How did you even find this place?” Asked Megaman, carefully turning around to not touch any of the sharp edges.

“I have my ways.”

Rock frowned at him. “Sure you do.”

“I’ll explain to you later,” said Protoman with a weak shrug. “How are your injuries?”

The blue bomber sighed at the answers, but looked more carefully at his diagnostics and risked touching his middle. It surprisingly wasn’t so bad. The pain reminded him more of a dull bruise than a sharp stabbing.

“They’re… very good I think.”

“A whole syringe of nanites really does wonders huh.”

“ _What_?” Megaman wanted to scream. “You didn’t use any for you!?”

“I’m fine, you’re at the Wily Stages, you _need_ the repairs,” said Blues. “I can wait here and lend you my shield, and I can join you at the end.”

“Does that mean we can teleport at the end?”

“Not _yet_ ,” answered Protoman. “Wily made teleporting toward the end impossible just like with Robot Masters, but since his linear stages are completely separate and inaccessible from the rest of the fortress, there’s no shortcuts into them. Good to keep us out, but bad for robot placement, so there’s an actual physical switch at the end of every stage to disable the blocking.”

“…How do you know that?”

“I used to have my buster you know,” smirked Blues. “tried to get through to Wily while his robots were busy with the city. They weren’t as busy as I thought. At least not Alter Man and Gel Woman.”

For a moment he asked himself if it had been a good idea to spare them. He wanted to believe they meant it, but knowing what they did to Protoman and the city… he couldn’t help but doubt. He shoo-ed the idea away best he could and absentmindedly rubbed at his cheek, only to realize there was no shards from his visor still in. Blues must have removed them while he as shut down.

“Are you sure you’ll be okay?” asked Rock, knowing he _had_ to leave, but hesitant to do so.

“I’ll be fine, this place is safer than the vents ever were.”

“Do you have the coordinates for Wily’s first stage?”

“Sure, I do,” said Blues with a smirk. “Who do you think I am?”

* * *

When Megaman teleported in the first stage, he just knew he was being watched. Well, it didn’t seem like there was any point in hiding anyways. The nanites had done a great job with repairs, but he was still weakened. He wouldn’t refuse any help. He called Roll. It rang only once.

“Rock!” her voice exclaimed. “Are you alright? What happened?”

“I’m okay now,” he said. “I think Blues rescued me. He’s resting in a new safe spot.”

“You _think_?”

“I had another emergency shutdown.”

“Oh… Well it’s good to know you’re both alright,” she said. “Is it safe enough for me to start mapping around you?”

“I think so, it doesn’t change much at this point,” he answered. “Blues gave me nanites, so I think I’m up to go to Wily now.”

“Alright, I’ll follow the signals I get from you.”

Megaman jumped on a few platforms, getting rid of some face recognition Joes in his way. Roll was silent on the other end except the distant sound of typing.

“Rock, how many weapons have you merged?” she suddenly asked.

“Made about four combinations I think.”

“If you want advice, I’d tell you to merge as many as you can,” she said. “I’ve been studying Light’s journal on these with his permission, and if I understand well it’s a separate container of energy for each, right?”

“Not exactly, but it seeps so little of the real thing it’s almost like that.”

“Then get as many as you can so you have a reserve of weapons, and it might make your life easier if you need one without having to merge them in the middle of battle.”

He had to admit she had a point. He did as instructed, and made as many mixes as he could, testing them out on one enemy each. Some weren’t compatible like the Zap Bolt with the Remote Bomb, while Boost kick seemed to mix with most weapons, though it felt more like dual weapons than a new one. Gel Blast and Alter Canon oddly seemed to fit only with each other. Either way he wouldn’t complain about the quantity of weapons he was getting. If he was strategic with them, the fight with Wily could be very easy.

Happily, the stage was pretty reminiscent of other fortresses he’d been through, and while the platforming was tricky and required an almost perfect timing, his experience was enough to get him through. Now he just had to hope the rest of the way would be the same. He arrived at the familiar metallic door and looked around, looking for the switch Protoman had mentioned. It wasn’t too hard to find, but Megaman had to admit that without knowing what they were, he would have never dared activating one.

He pulled down. It made a loud sound, like an alarm, but nothing happened. He definitely would have been deceived. At least he knew it wasn’t a kill switch. It would have been dumb to put in a place so easy to access anyway.

He went in the metal door, waiting for something to come at him. The room was quite spacious and rather dark. He activated his night vision for safety and saw a huge machine in front of him. It resembled… ugh.

“Hey Roll, you know anything about another Guts Man rip-off robot?” he asked.

Its metal eyelids opened, so did the rest of its systems, letting out a loud whirring.

“Oh, definitely,” she said, sounding just as exasperated as him. “We had some smaller tank-like robot attack the city once or twice, but we destroyed it.”

“Looks like he kept the real thing for me…” said Megaman, looking up at the eyes starting to light up. “It’s huge.”

“You’ll have to get _inside_ to deactivate it,” said Roll. “Its main design flaw is the guarding from the inside. Sabotage the main console and it’s over. Get rid of the main body parts and you’ll have access. Which means the arms and the tail.”

“A tail?”

“Yyyup,” said Roll almost jokingly. “I know, it’s silly. Careful by the way, it has spikes.”

“Gotcha.”

Almost on cue, he noticed a shadow on the corner of his eyes and leaped away, a heavy object crashing where he used to be. He looked back up at the eyes, that were staring back down at him. He barely had the time to look back in front that he saw a hand heading straight for him. He threw himself down on the floor just in time and he felt the air get fresher for a second. This had been a bit too close for comfort. He got back up and threw a remote bomb behind him, making them blow on the hand and taking out two fingers. It was working, but he doubted this would do. He needed to keep as much weapon energy as he could.

“What worked well for the arms?”

“Heat weapons like Fireman’s seemed to work well. So maybe Alter Canon, since it produces a lot of heat.”

He had an even better idea. He’d boil it down. He selected the merged weapons of Gel Woman and Alter Man—the Gel Canon—and looked for the best spot to aim at. He considered the shoulders, but they were quite high and hard to get to. Other option was the elbows, but they were constantly in movement too.

“Which do you recommend I try to break between the elbow and shoulder?” he asked Roll.

“Both worked for us, so I guess it’s a height thing. Depends exactly how high he is.”

“Higher than the house.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’d recommend the elbow then. He attacks with his hands, so if you time it right…”

The untouched hand was coming his way.

“Already on it.”

He jumped, getting on the wrist and barely dodging the thumb. The arm was smoother than he expected and in one curt stop he was sent flying, his back hitting a wall. He got up quickly and thanked Protoman once again in his mind for the nanites and the shield on his back as he leaped away from the hand attempting to crush him on the wall. He could try to use the Boost Kick and use the double jumps to get up, but it might still be too smooth… but he had something that could help.

He waited for the hand to charge at him again, taking out a new weapon, the Blade Kick. He felt his feet getting a tad heavier and saw some blades had also appeared at the front of his feet. They reminded him of what Guillo Man had. He looked back up, seeing the robot preparing to attempt the wall smash again. He jumped once again, this time the blade cutting through and allowing him to have a good grip. He didn’t lose any time and started climbing, seeing the robot raising its free three-fingered hand raising to try and squash him like a mosquito. He got out just in time of a hit and was almost thrown off by the impact that made the whole arm shake, one of his feet and arm slipping out of their dents. Almost there. At least the joint seemed to be easier to grab and he wouldn’t have to stay on it long.

He finally arrived and made two gashes: one for him to grab onto and another to jam his buster in. He switched for the Gel Canon and grabbed firmly the first gash, jamming his buster in the other. He felt his buster getting hot as he charged his shot, and released it when he saw the robot raising his free arm again. It seemed to do its job well, smoke emanating from the gash and sounds telling Megaman of its success. He switched for the Guillo Kick again, making the gashes longer to try and free the inside of the joint as much as possible. He jumped when the hand hit again, landing on the wrist and climbing to the other elbow. He heard the sound of heavy metal falling to the ground. It seemed the self-hit had done the rest of the work. Good.

He cut his way through the second elbow and charged another blast of the boiling Gel, the incomplete arm harmlessly trying to reach him, the chest plate being too large to allow the elbows to touch.

And suddenly something hit him at the side, making him release the blast on the floor with barely a few drops on the joint.

The tail. He had forgotten about the tail. And now four gashes, two at the front and two at the back made his body sting. He was lucky it didn’t go right through him.

“Are you alright?” asked Roll through the coms. “We can—”

“I’ll be fine,” he insisted. “Just forgot about the tail.”

“Right. Bomb Man’s weapon worked well with it, blowing up the tip seemed to do the trick.”

“Gotcha.”

He dropped a remote bomb at his feet and waited, switching for the mega buster to shoot at the hand and make believe he had forgotten about the tail again. It seemed to make its effect, as the tail charged for him again. He leaped away and made the bomb explode behind him, Protoman’s shield blocking the impact to his back. He threw another one at the tail once again and it fell limply. Well, that was taken care of.

The three-fingered hand grabbed him just as he was looking back and lifted him up to the robot’s face. It started squeezing. He could already feel his middle struggling. He had to get the hand away safely. Thankfully, he had exposed its circuits earlier. He shot a Zap Bolt right in some open circuitry. The shock made the hand tighten its grip, then let go of Megaman. The blue bomber grabbed onto the pinkie finger, then swung himself back up the arm, switching for the Guillo Kick and climbing back to the elbow to finish the job. He charged a blast of boiling gel, let go, and landed back on the ground. The robot’s jaw dropped, showing a canon. It immediately started shooting missiles at him.

“Ignore the missiles and just go behind,” said roll. “The access is opened anyway.”

He circled around the rip-off, but the access to the back of the head was high and there were no platforms or ladders. He had very little left of the Guillo Kick; he wouldn’t make it to the top.

“The access is too high for me and I won’t make it with what I have left of my mixed weapon,” he told Roll. “I could use a pure Guillo Blade, but I don’t think it’s the best idea. Any suggestions?”

“It’s better if you keep the pure blade,” Roll agreed. “Have you tried wall jumping with the Boost Woman’s weapon? I’ve seen her do it the one time she showed up.”

Funny, he recalled Protoman had mentioned it too. “I’m open to the suggestion,” he said, switching for the weapon and barely dodging one of the homing missiles.

He leapt on the wall and surely enough, the dashes felt controlled enough to jump on the wall, like if he was pulled towards it. Was it the same mechanism that made her navigate so easily? Some kind of magnet in the boots perhaps?

The steady rhythm allowed him to access the head in a short amount of time, the missiles trying to reach him, but being repulsed by their user’s body and flying almost harmlessly around him. He arrived at the nape, finding a small door at its base, so small he needed to crawl through. If he hadn’t known it was there, he wouldn’t have found it. Perhaps another improvement from the smaller prototypes. He arrived in a small room with a console at the front.

“So how do I deactivate this bot?” he asked.

“As funny as it sounds, smashing everything worked, but I suspect Wily might have changed a few things since then, so I’d recommend trying to zap it first, something more subtle.”

Megaman broke off a panel on the side of the console and shot a Zap bolt in. It seemed to have an effect, but it was short-lived.

“Not quite,” he said.

“Can you charge it?” she suggested. “Take your time, he can’t really attack you inside.

As if on cue, he heard a few clicks, and suddenly there where columns of fire shooting from the floor and ceiling, and the crawl space to the outside closed off. He closed his eyes from the sudden light and deactivated his night vision.

“Looks like Wily changed that part,” he said. He’d have to improvise.

He threw a few Remote Bombs in the console, then a bit of pure Fog Strike mixed with a quarter of a Zap Strike for a maximum effect, then shot the powerful Gush Valve directly in the crawlspace, though it wasn’t enough to break it. The floor started to feel hot beneath his feet and even began to redden. The Gush Valve’s water was already evaporating. Only the console was safe, but it was at the wrong side of the room, and he had no other access to the outside. Being so low in the rip-off’s head, he didn’t even have access to the eyes of the knockoff. The floor in the crawlspace was the same shade of glowing red.

His system shot him a warning, it seemed the overall temperature rise was extremely quick and his venting systems and coolant couldn’t help enough.

He equipped the Gel Blast and shot some harmless Gel on the ground, making a clear path to and in the crawlspace, then stuck the Alter canon in the beginning of the trail to freeze it, creating a temporary safe path. He then charged more boiling gel with the fused weapon and used his improvised path, shooting the bubbling gel on the blocked crawlspace once he was close. He slid in the crawlspace and started kicking through the gel. It burned his foot, but he could feel the thick metal panel give way under his kicks. Protoman’s shield was starting to feel hot on his back, no doubt taking in the heat from below, as the Gel below him had lost its cool already and slowly starting to bubble. At least it helped unblock the entryway. The Blue Bomber shot some more bubbling Gel on the blocked exit and kicked harder, ignoring the bubbling drops that flew on his body and face.

Finally, the metal under his foot gave way and he pushed himself out, Detonating the bombs in the console the moment he felt the fresh air. He leaped away from the entry point, and he felt a wave of heat on his back, then a slow shut down noise, followed by silence. Megaman made his way back down, looking up at the rip-off. Its eyes were dark again.

“And he’s off,” he sighed, wiping off the gel he could see on himself.

“Are you sure you don’t need any repairs or materials for self-repairs?” she asked. “You went quiet there, so I assume something unplanned happened?”

“I’ll be fine Roll, he assured, rubbing his feet on the ground and pushing gel off of Protoman’s shield. “The auto-repairs should handle it.”

The gashes from the tail still hurt, but after the last few days of constant pain it didn’t feel too bad, and was very bearable. He preferred this much more than his middle.

“Alright, I’ll be there,” she said.

He received notification of some new coordinates not too far from his location.

“Did you send these coordinates?”

“Nope,” answered Roll. “Could you send them to me? We can’t teleport, but at least I’ll know the placement.”

“I’ll look if there’s a door first. Blues only had the first stage’s coordinates.”

“Best move.”

Neither of them trusted the new coordinates, but after one good search with his night vision around the room, he found there were no doors to the next stage.

“There’s no manual entries, I’ll have to use the coordinates,” he notified Roll.

“Hopefully they’re the stage’s coordinates,” she replied.

He teleported and found himself in the middle of a very large cubic room. It reminded him of Zap Woman’s but without the machine and pipes.

“You alright?” asked Roll. “It’s not a spike pit?”

“It’s not,” chuckled Megaman. “But it’s not the second stage either…”

“There’s no second stage,” said a voice behind him.

The Blue Bomber turned around, forming his buster.

“Heh, didn’t think you’d be so eager, Megaman.”

It was Bass, smirking with his support unit at his side and his canon at the ready.


	17. Barging in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning that a support unit gets hurt at some point, but is overall fine.  
> Mild trypophobia warning at the end, plus some very hurt robots (like throughout the whole story kinda haha) but better safe than sorry

“Bass, where have you been?” asked Megaman almost worriedly. “Is Treble alright?”

Bass’ smirk turned into a glare.

“I saw you two through the vents,” almost hurriedly continued Megaman. “He sounded hurt.”

His glare softened ever so slightly, but he remained in his combat stance.

“It’s none of your business,” he spat. “You know why I’m here.”

“Bass please, I don’t want to fight you,” Megaman almost sighed. This was getting old.

“I mean, if you don’t want to coordinates directly for Wily’s it’s your choice,” he smirked again. “I’ll give you something to fight for, raise the stakes a little. I mean, I’m going to win anyway, but if it was enough of a challenge, I’ll give you the coordinates to Wily’s little warehouse, what do you think?”

“I’m not here for fun,” said Megaman behind his teeth. He had no time to lose, and he didn’t like how lightly Bass was taking the situation.

“Well then it’s in your best interest to make it a good one,” said the Special Wily Number. “Just you and me, all weapons allowed, so no sister or support unit. I know you have contact.”

Treble complained about the rules with a whine, but Bass only (softly) shoo-ed him away.

“Roll, I’ll call you back,” he said.

“Don’t worry, I heard it all,” she replied. “I’ll be here all day.”

And with that, she disconnected, leaving them both alone, or almost. Treble tried walking back to Bass’ side, only to be shoo-ed away once again. The support unit sat by the wall obediently, but whined.

“Stay,” said Bass, turning back to Megaman.

Megaman remained unmoving and staring. He really did not wish to do this useless fight. He had to get to Wily.

But then Bass _would_ give him an access. If he could skip searching or the next stage (he trusted Blues saying there were other stages more than Bass saying some line for effect) it would save quite some time.

Bass started shooting, following Megaman dashing away with his rapid-fire buster. The Blue Bomber considered throwing a Remote Bomb or use the Gush Valve to speed it up, but he preferred to keep all his weapons for Wily. He charged a shot a regular buster shot. Bass aimed in front of him instead of following, hitting him successfully a few times in the chest—boy, was he glad he had gotten nanites. Megaman dashed in the other direction to dodge the rest, looked over at his rival and shot a third level shot, which Bass dodged rather easily. He began charging again, only for Bass to dash toward him. Expecting a shot, he leaped sideways, only to have a sharp blade cut into the back of his used-to-be uninjured foot, making him fall.

As he touched the ground, he felt a slight rumbling under him.

“Thought only _you_ took the weapons?” taunted Bass. “I’m not letting you have that advantage.”

Rock dashed away, making Bass plant the blade into the hard ground. He tried pulling it out, but changed his mind, his armor switching for a pastel yellow rather than their usual golden color. Maybe he could try a little something…

He threw a Remote Bomb at his rival and, almost by reflex, he shot a sparkling bolt right into it. He seemed to realize his mistake as the bomb glowed a bit before exploding practically in his face.

Treble barked, growled, paced and whined, wanting to jump in and assist, but wishing to keep following his master’s orders. Bass replied through the smoke with a few Zap Bolts in Megaman’s direction. One of them hit a cut made by the Guts Man rip-off and sent his body in a violent spasm. Megaman replied with a few shots from his buster, but Bass had dashed away from the clearing cloud of smoke.

There was this rumble again. He had a bad feeling.

He started charging a shot. Bass’s pastel yellow turned to blue, and Megaman got out Protoman’s shield just in time to block the water coming his way. His feet slid on the ground from the push. He could feel it be stronger. Bass was getting closer, and he had a feeling he knew what he wanted to do. His shot was at the fourth level.

He tilted the shield to the side and safely got out of the water’s way. Bass seemed to judge he was close enough, changing for the Guillo Blade and going towards Megaman. The shot went out almost automatically, hitting Bass square in the chest and sending him down on the floor once again.

The rumble felt stronger. He couldn’t ignore it anymore.

“Did you feel that?” he asked Bass.

“Feel what!?” spat out his rival. “Don’t make any excuses out of—!”

Then there was another. It was impossible not to notice the ground shaking under them. The sounds coming from outside the room was worryingly loud

“The hell…?” said Bass.

He looked around for the source as he got back up and quickly called Treble, who ran to his side and nervously circled around his legs.

Then the wall behind Megaman blew.

The impact push sent them both flying, some heavy concrete pieces hitting Megaman’s shoulder and sending off his remaining shoulder pad. Once on the ground, he rolled out of the way of another debris falling right where he used to be. He could hear some maniacal laughter through some speakers at the top, around some tainted glass. He recognized it too well.

“Wily…?”

He turned back toward the source of the explosion. There was a machine as tall as the room. It felt like a mix of King’s combined tanks and Wily’s machine from his second attempt at taking over the world. It was somehow bigger than the Guts Man rip-off.

“Treble!” he heard on the other side. “No, no, no—”

He quickly ran around the debris, only to see Bass throw aside some rubble and pulling up a bigger piece that wasn’t complying.

“Is he alright?” asked Megaman as he ran to his rival.

“What does it look like!?” snapped Bass. The piece of concrete barely moving. “He’s under there!”

Megaman glanced at the tank coming for them, two canons starting to aim at them. He could hear them charge.

“Bass, we have to get away—"

“You run like a coward if you want!” growled Bass, pulling harder, the concrete moving, but not near enough.

He could hear Treble’s whining. He would never do this to Rush. Megaman joined, pulling up and hoping it would be quick enough. They could feel it move, but it wasn’t enough.

The canon fired.

But the missile exploded in mid-air, triggered by a large, solid green ball from above. Gel Woman and Alter Man dropped from the ceiling, standing in front of the boys. A third robot dropped down from the passage, this time joining the two other bots.

“Protoman!” exclaimed Megaman. “How did you get here?”

“Had some coordinates,” he said. “And got picked up by your two friends there. Wished you told me though, I would have been less difficult.”

Protoman joined in the effort on the rubble, and the piece of concrete finally obliged to their combined strength. Soon the purple wolf wriggled his way out and went to his master. His tail hadn’t followed out and his front paws had received noticeable damage, but he seemed alert and unbothered by the damage. Bass immediately opened an access panel and quickly looked inside. Megaman ran back to the front, joining the two Robot Masters.

“What is this machine?” asked Megaman, knowing what it was, but hoping he was wrong. “Is it automated?

“It’s Wily,” said Alter Man.

“Must be some robot double—”

Gel Woman shook her head.

“He didn’t make any doubles,” said Alter Man. “We’ve been in his lab often enough; he didn’t do anything of the sorts.”

Megaman remained speechless. Did Wily just barge in the middle of his fight with Bass and tried shooting at them _both_? Bass had been fighting him, he was on Wily’s side, wasn’t he?

The canons charged again. Megaman turned to Bass with one hand in, Protoman looking over his shoulder.

“He’s charging, get away!” exclaimed Rock.

Protoman took cover behind the block they had moved and Bass closed the panel. Megaman barely had time to dash away that he felt the heat of the explosion behind. He looked back to see Alter and Gel behind a thick wall of Frozen gel. It didn’t seem like there was much of it left, but being crouched had kept them in a safe part. Bass had been just above of the explosion, landing on the floor next to Megaman in his Treble Boost form.

“You know what?” he said. “After this, you can have Wily. I am _not_ saving his sorry ass this time.”

“What about you?” Megaman asked. “Where will you go?”

“Not your business,” he said curtly, flying up and charging a shot, going for the tinted glass at the top of the machine.

Megaman ran behind the concrete debris, finding Protoman sitting behind, the fabric on his chest still thrown over his shoulder.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “Just can’t do much as of now.”

“Oh, right…” replied Megaman, getting the shield off his back and giving it to Protoman.

“Don’t worry about it,” Protoman chuckled. “I can only deflect some bullets with this, he’s too high up. You should probably keep it and I’ll keep cover and call Roll.”

Roll, he had forgotten to call her back. She must have pinged Protoman too.

Megaman practically pushed the shield on him. “The I.C. chips are inside, they’ll be safer with you. Stay here, don’t do anything stupid.”

“Will do,” replied Blues, pulling the fabric back on top of his chest.

Megaman stood back up, giving his brother a stern look and went back out, calling Roll and quickly analyzing the situation.

“Did you kick Bass’s ass?” Roll chuckled.

“We got interrupted, Wily’s here.”

“Oh.”

She began to type something very quickly. Megaman dashed away from a missile. He looked up at Bass focusing on the glass. His shots didn’t seem to do a lot of progress, which was rather odd. He could hear Wily cursing after the robot in his view.

“You haven’t seen any prototype for a huge machine out in the city, have you?” he asked.

“Nope,” she said. “Have you tried going directly to the cockpit?”

“Bass is on it, but there’s no progress.”

“Yo,” Protoman’s voice interrupted. “Sorry I’ve been eavesdropping, but I’m pretty sure the cockpit is the most heavily guarded. Got told there were _layers_ to the machine. Surely they’re protecting the cockpit too.”

“Told?” echoed Rock.

Roll didn’t stick at that detail. “Well then, we’ll have to find a way to remove the layers… Wily’s paranoid, he might have made his machine weak to his robots’ weapons in case someone else took it.”

Protoman hummed. “Wouldn’t be his type to make it that easy. Not after what we’ve seen in this fortress. “

“Some variation of that, then,” said Roll.

There were some muffled voices coming from her end.

“I have to go,” she said. “But I’ll be back soon. With good news, I’m certain.”

“Wait, what do you mean—?” Megaman tried to ask, but she had disconnected.

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” said Protoman. “She wouldn’t let her brothers in trouble just like that. I believe her.”

“I do hope it’ll be good news.”

Megaman dodged another missile by dashing, observing the machine for any particular place he could try. Gel Woman and Alter Man had gone at the machine’s wheels and were boiling up some gel. He noticed the first two wheels had melted, but not the metal partially covering them. Maybe both of his siblings were right. He could use the weapons, but not just throw them around anywhere. He had to think of his moves.

He looked up at Bass, who was still at the cockpit, but had given up on the glass itself and was trying to shoot at what Megaman guessed were joints. He noticed some kind of arms coming from above, curling out like a rubber hose and one of them going straight for the fused robot.

“Bass, look out!” shouted Rock.

He was too late, and the three-fingered hand grabbed firmly at Bass’s helmet, two at the top and one under his chin. It ripped him away from the machine and the “wrist” part of the arm tightly wrapped around his neck, effectively trapping him. Bass struggled, one hand trying to pull away the fingers, legs kicking as he grunted. He shot at the arm with his free hand, but his shots didn’t seem to have any effect, the arm remaining just as solid.

“You ungrateful brat!” shouted Wily through the speakers.

Bass didn’t listen and continued trying to get the hand off him. It didn’t work. The hand suddenly went to the wall, banging Bass along the way.

It did it again, and again, and again, every hit stronger than the last.

“I built you!” continued Wily. “Repaired you when you failed your own purpose! And how do you repay me!? Taking E-tank, stealing nanites!? And for what? For a mutt!? As if I wouldn’t notice!”

Megaman felt his figurative heart tighten. Bass hadn’t been on Wily’s side after all.

A piece of is left wing broke and heavily fell down as he tried to fight back the movement he couldn’t stop, activating the jet on his back and flapping his wings backwards for extra momentum. Megaman looked up in horror as a whole wing broke and fell off at the twentieth blow, hitting the floor in barely held together pieces. Megaman _had_ to do something. He observed the arm as he dodged another missile. It seemed like they had as much freedom of movement as a tentacle. It banged Bass against the wall again.

It reminded Megaman of Boost Woman.

“Bass! Use the Guillo Blade!” he shouted.

Bass didn’t seem to hear as his other wing broke from a blow and was now loosely hanging from his back. Part of his fin broke off and fell down. Bass must be unable to hear him with the blows and the armor cracking. He had to get that hand off, along with the others. He had to get up to the cockpit and quickly. The Guillo Kick was too slow; at this rate all of Bass’ armor would be gone by the time he was up.

Happily, he knew a quick way to get up. He ran to the front of the machine, at the cockpit and switched for the pure Gush Valve, immediately activating it towards the ground. It pushed him up very quickly, and when it started being too unstable, he was three-quarters on the way there. He climbed the rest with the Guillo kick. He was almost empty, but he’d make it.

“Megaman, try to put some bombs in the canons,” he heard Protoman say in the coms. “It makes missiles, maybe we can have them blow up their own canon by triggering them.”

“But Bass—”

“You can get him after, but you can’t hit the arm holding him without falling down. Getting back up will waste weapons, plus Wily expecting you.”

Megaman looked at Bass, but Protoman had a point. Now that he was on the machine itself, the missiles had been aiming for Gel Woman and Alter Man, significantly slowing their progress with the wheels.

“Hang on, Bass,” he said, his figurative gut wrenching at the sound of his armor cracking.

He leaped on the canon, making his way to the opening. The two other non-busy hands came for him and he made quick work of them with the blade. They tried to wrap themselves around him, but with the hand they slipped away, Megaman’s progress too quick for them. Once at the edge and away from their grip, he switched for the Remote Bomb, letting five of them fall down the canon. The second canon fired a missile, and the impact push almost made Megaman topple over. He carefully jumped on the canon, let five bombs in, then used the last of his Guillo Kick to make his way back to the cockpit, switching to the pure Guillo Blade just in time to keep his grip.

He focused back on Bass, who was still resisting the hand, but with much less energy than before. Due to the arm’s joints being numerous, the edge moved a lot more than the base, and if he timed a jump right, he could cleanly cut it off so short it wouldn’t reach them again. The arm had a rhythm. One side per second, like a metronome following the ticking of a clock.

Tick tock, tick tock.

He detonated the bombs and jumped, slashing at the arm. It cut perfectly like Boost Woman’s braid, dropping Bass with the rest of the arm. Megaman jumped after him, and he felt the heat of the canons blowing behind him as he grabbed onto his rival and activated the Gush Valve toward the floor once they had fallen half of the way down. It was unstable, but it broke their fall, and Megaman landed safely. Bass pushed himself away as soon as they touched ground. A shadow grew under them, and they both dashed away from a canon remnant, though Bass wasn’t able to keep his balance because of his hanging wing and finished the dash sliding on the ground. Megaman went to his side, helping him back up and Bass reluctantly accepted the help.

Megaman was able to see the extent of the damage better now that Bass wasn’t constantly banged on a wall. His remaining wing was done for, the other one still smashed on the ground a bit further, the parts of his helmet the weren’t gone were cracked or barely holding together, his right shoulder had lost its pauldron and was sunken in, and that was apart from all the other bruises and cracks.

“If you go behind there,” Megaman pointed at the rubble where Protoman was. “Protoman is there too—”

“I am _not_ hiding like a coward!” cut off Bass. “This old coot is gonna get what he deserves!”

“You’re in no shape—”

They were interrupted by Wily. “Ha! Did you really think I’d let you crawl about on my machine without me having a plan!?”

Six robots teleported in. All too familiar.

Zap Woman constantly sparked, her systems still damaged, every move shooting a spasm through her. Fog Man was starting to be visible under the thin fog he produced, exposing the numerous bruises Megaman had left on him. Guillo Man was covered in holes from the Fog Strikes, one of his eyes simply gone. Boost Woman held on her feet only thanks to metal bars nailed under her feet. Gush Man’s eyes were blank and his spout looked still broken from Protoman’s kicking. Detonation Woman, helmet gone and eyes covered by static, made a bomb explode at Gel Woman’s feet, taking out part of her own armor in the process, not that it seemed to bother the purple robot more than her still missing arm. Alter Man caught his partner before she’d hit the ground and carried her away, preferring to get both of them away rather than shoot back at a former line mate.

No matter who Megaman looked, they were the same: battered, cracked barely patched up with plates, some injuries showing as if they were still fresh. They didn’t speak, barely stood on their feet and their expression remained unchanging.

And when he looked into their eyes nothing looked back.


	18. Barging in (part 2)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for bots getting hurt, it gets a bit graphic. And some mention without description of a robo dog hurt (not too bad but still, better safe than sorry) Also one or two not nice works because Bass  
> I added a 20th chapter to the plan, but it might be 19 after all, it all depends on how the next chapter goes

Megaman looked back at Bass, who was staring at the newly reactivated robots.

“Did you know about this?” said the blue bomber, almost alarmed.

From the look Bass gave Megaman, he knew immediately Bass was just as disturbed.

A bolt came rushing at them. Bass leaped away, his remaining wing heavily trailing behind him while Megaman went the other way, shooting regular buster shots at Zap Woman. She seemed to not feel it, but wasn’t very resistant to the blows, losing her balance at a level two charge shot. Making a bolt seemed to make her heavily shake just like during their battle. The metal plates covering her injuries didn’t seem very thick or solid from afar, he preferred not to imagine what it would look like up close.

He switched for what he had left of the Gush valve, the blow pushing the electric robot master against Wily’s machine. The weapon was almost empty, but it seemed to have effect thanks to the sloppy patching, making her spark and shake at every movement she tried. Hopefully, one solid blow could take her out. Megaman threw a remote bomb close to her, one of her sparks touching it and making it explode, blowing up half of her side. She still somehow got up, her torso unstable and making her bend slightly on her side. Megaman didn’t even want to look, and he was glad Gel Woman and Alter Man were too busy with Fog Man to look his way.

A shadow passed above his head. He barely had time to look up that he heard a blast hitting the object above. It fell heavily on his left. A wing fuming from a large plasma blast.

Megaman’s head whipped to Bass’ location, alarmed. It was soon replaced by relief seeing the wily number still standing and fused, now with both wings gone. Bass just looked angry as ever and curtly pointed at the Wily machine where a new canon had sprouted and was charging another plasma shot. It was almost right above Zap Woman, if he had paid attention, he would have seen it. Other similar canons had sprouted.

Zap Woman’s balance gave under her unvoluntary bending as Megaman dodged the canon’s charged shot coming at him. He heard an odd sound coming from the machine. Circular doors at the bottom opened, letting out a smaller version of the Guts Man rip-off, certainly smaller than the prototypes Roll had mentioned, but big enough to be deadly and heavy. One of the doors was right behind Zap Woman. He preferred not to look.

It gave just enough time for the plasma canon to shoot at him. He leaped away, but was a moment too late, and his nanite-repaired leg received the entire blow. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to hurt _too_ much, at least for now. He could feel an odd numbness instead, and he wasn’t sure if it was a good sign or not. He started shooting regular shots at the smaller ripoffs, testing their armor. They didn’t seem as solid, but there was quite a number of them going out. Just how many things did Wily have in this machine?

He looked in Gel Woman and Alter Man’s direction as Fog Man fell. The two Wily bots looked back and made their way to him. Gel Woman pointed at Alter Man and herself, her buster, then the wheels of the tank, where they had been able to melt off all of the right side.

“We need to find the machine’s weaknesses,” said Alter Man.

“You seem to have started well with the wheels,” answered Megaman.

“We knew about the wheels,” replied Alter Man. “It was the one part we were told to attack if someone else took the machine. Take it down together with the rest of the line. But we weren’t allowed to discuss our spots with the others.”

“So each weapon has a different spot we have to hit. Roll and Protoman _were_ right,” thought the Blue Bomber out loud.

“Gel has a theory…” started Alter, then looking at his partner.

She pointed Fog Man on the ground, then up at a small gray square on the machine. A vent. There were a few scattered around, but aside from cooling he wouldn’t have thought they had a use.

“We’ll take care of our line,” said Alter Man once he knew Megaman had a visual.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked. “I can’t ask you to kill—”

“You have the chips, they are husks,” Alter Man cut. Gel Woman lightly tapped her chest twice. He continued after paying attention to her gesture. “Besides I agree with Gel, we’d rather have them taken out by us. Quickly. Then we’ll take care of the wheels on the other side and the Gut tanks.”

Gut tanks? Weird name. Megaman pushed the thought aside and nodded.

“Be careful,” he said.

Gel Woman nodded and pulled at Alter’s arm. They ran toward Guillo Man and Gush Man at the right side of the machine. Megaman started moving to dodge charge shots from the machine’s canons. How would he get up there? He had no Guillo Kick or Gush Valve left, using a pure Guillo blade or another blade variation would deplete too quickly, and he barely had enough Boost kick to make it to only one vent. He couldn’t stay put and use distance either with the Guts tanks coming his way. His lack of weapons gave him quite the disadvantage.

But he knew someone who was almost full on all weapons.

And that someone was busy fending off a very fast robot while canons aimed at him and little tanks were making their way to the fight. Megaman dashed to the two wily numbers while charging a shot. Boost Woman’s state seemed to have her too focused on Bass to even see him coming and he shot a level four shot at almost point blank, sending her several feet further.

“I think it would be a good idea for you to stay clear of the Robot Masters,” half-jokingly sad Megaman.

“Oh _please_ ,” sighed Bass. “It’s just my wings and some armor, I still have the jet, if you think some cracks are gonna stop me—!”

Megaman looked down at the cracked armor. It wasn’t nearly as bad as his middle had been, but he wouldn’t want to push Bass’ luck… either way, he needed him for something that should lower his chances of getting hurt.

“Listen, the machine has weak spots that a specific weapon can take out,” said Megaman. “The Fog Strike should destroy whatever’s in those vents, but I’m empty on ascension stuff. The Boost Kick will get you—"

“Nu-uh, I’m not un-fusing to switch to those lame weapons.”

They leaped away from a canon’s plasma shot. The situation was too pressing to be arguing about this. Megaman glanced back at Bass. He remembered the concern for Treble and what Wily had said while hitting him on the wall over and over. He highly doubted this unwillingness was about the weapons. He made his way back to Bass, who got back up admittedly a little slow.

“I’m sure Treble will be alright,” said Megaman with a smile. “He’s a smart dog.”

“Fuck you.”

Bass was _such_ a joy to be with. Ugh.

They separated again to dodge both plasma shots. The tanks were too close to comfort and also charging shots. He heard Protoman through his coms.

“Tell Bass to answer my ping, I’ll talk to him.”

“How long have you been listening?” asked Megaman.

“I mean I never disconnected,” Megaman could almost see him shrug through his tone. “Besides, how else am I gonna know what’s happening? Good visuals are hard to get back here.”

Megaman got back to Bass.

“Protoman wants you to answer him. It’s urgent.”

Bass growled, but seemed to do it. “If you’re gonna complain about your core, you should have stayed inside the walls like I told you, stupid! I’m busy here!”

Bass knew about the emergency safe spot…? Protoman didn’t seem to find it surprising. Megaman could still hear him through his own coms.

“No, it’s about Treble. If we don’t get rid of the weak spots we’ll be stuck in this fight forever, this isn’t better for Treble. Your fusion can’t protect him if you’re knocked out, and I might not be here to play mister assistant.”

Bass grunted, glared at Megaman, then activated his unstable jet to go to a higher vent.

“What did you do?” asked Megaman, dodging a plasma shot once again and charging one himself for the Guts tanks.

“Convinced him, can’t you see?” he could bet Protoman was smirking on the other side.

Megaman looked up. Bass had reached the highest vent halfway up the tank, and started un-fusing, his armor turning white as it happened. Megaman used what he had left of the Boost Kick to make his way up the lowest vent and emptied some of the Fog Strike in. It took barely a few seconds before smoke came out. Heavy and dark, nothing like the fog that went in. One vent wasn’t much, but if it got rid of the machine faster it was worth it. He landed at the same time than Treble, who paced and looked up at his master, then around, fully alert and growling. A charged plasma shot from a Gut tank made its way on Megaman’s middle without him noticing. The shot burned, also travelling through the injury from the colossal Guts Man rip-off. He hissed at the movement and fell on one knee. It might have hit harder than he initially thought.

Treble came to his side, pushing up his hand with his nose a few times, as if insisting for him to get up. Megaman shot a few charged plasma shots at the smaller tanks. Hitting their head seemed to make a good job of it. He looked in Alter Man and Gel Woman’s direction. Alter Man was alone and Gush Man seemed to accidentally hit a charging Guillo Man who fell down, accidentally saving Alter Man in the process. Alter Man make two of his shields, an ice one and a fire one and shot them at Gush Man before looking in Megaman’s direction, and seeing he was looking back, started waving with both arm canons alarmingly. Megaman hesitated, knowing how damaged Bass was and seeing the tanks coming their way, but Alter and Gel had a lot to take care of and also a few Guts tanks their way.

“You howl if there’s something, okay boy?” he told Treble. “Or bark, just anything that’s very loud, and you run to me, alright? We don’t want you hurt.”

The support unit just looked back up at Bass before leaping of one of the Guts tanks, biting the head ferociously and tearing it off. Megaman took it as a positive answer. He shot one last glance at Boost Woman, who hadn’t moved an inch since he intervened, before dashing to Alter who ran to join him midway.

“Gel, she’s—she’s on the other side,” he said, hurry making him stutter. “We got separated—my weapon is useless—oh no, no—! Detonation Woman, she’s over there too! Gel is weak to her—my weapon is useless—I’m useless without her!”

This panicked bot was very different from how he was earlier. Megaman’s armor turned to green.

“I’ll be your Gel until we get her back,” he said.

Alter Man frantically nodded and ran back toward Gush Man. Guillo Man was lying on the ground, bits of both boiling gel and frozen gel slightly washed away by water. Clearly the I.C chip-less bots didn’t have the notion of looking out for their line mates.

Their coordination was sloppy at best. As much as Gel Woman and Alter Man seemed to read each other’s minds, there was a lot missing in Megaman’s communication with Alter Man. Not only were they not used to each other, Alter was constantly looking at Gel’s position, who was trying to keep a safe distance from Detonation Woman. They had to get there, but Gush Man was in the way.

“We were able to defeat him when Protoman broke his spout,” said Megaman. “We have to undo or worsen the repairs Wily did on him.”

He wasn’t sure Alter Man had listened, but he seemed to have understood, as he froze every gel Megaman had prepared. He was still rather distracted by the two robots on the other side.

Gel had been holding out well, dodging what she could, but she couldn’t dodge every bomb. She dodged one at her feet, but went straight onto another, exploding when it touched her shoulder. Gel was thrown on one side, her arm on the other. Alter Man gasped and broke into a sprint, Gush Man’s presence completely forgotten.

“Alter, no!” exclaimed Megaman, but he was already gone.

Gush Man did not forget and shot as much water as his damaged spout would let him as he ran toward the fire and ice robot. Megaman switched to the regular buster, shooting as many bullets as he could. They all hit, but none of them seemed to get Gush Man’s attention, his lack of anger making him prefer a target in his vision. Alter noticed the water coming to him too late and attempted to freeze the water like Freeze Man had done under Roll’s command in the city, but the ice wasn’t as solid and broke, hitting him along with the water. If only they could get rid of the water…

Gush Man’s spout was already spewing in odd directions, maybe if he could finish breaking it, they would stand a better chance… and if the Robot Master order Protoman had made for him was right, then a variation of Gel Woman’s or Alter Man’s weapon should hurt harder.

Megaman switched for the Gel Canon, feeling the attack warm up his buster in a matter of seconds. He made his way behind Gush Man, who hadn’t looked away from Alter Man ever since he had laid his eyes on him and shot the boiling gel right on the spout. Gush Man looked down at his spout, the bubbling green liquid producing smoke. Almost. Alter Man used the opening to get up and run to Gel Woman, who was shooting as much gel as he could on Detonation Woman to try and stop her from shooting bombs, but every bomb seemed to get out of her buster anyway, and she seemed to be able to throw them accurately despite the gel in her eyes. Gel Woman’s missing arm had since been blown to pieces and she seemed to have difficulty walking. All explosions seemed to have touched her legs, or at least the sole of her feet.

Megaman felt his buster become cold as he aimed at Gush Man’s back. The water robot laid his eyes on Alter Man once again, turning his body to shoot out water again. This time, Megaman wouldn’t let it happen. He shot the freezing ball of gel, hitting just when Gush Man started letting out water. The boiling gel had made the spout fragile, and the solid hit from the frozen shot broke it completely, water refusing to get out aside from a few drops.

Alter Man finally got close to his partner as Detonation Woman threw another bomb at her. The fire and ice robot master closed the distance between them and grabbed onto his partner, throwing them both on the ground and forming an ice shield between them and the bomb, him on top to cover her, and her covering as much space on his head as possible with her remaining hand.

The ice shield blew under Detonation Woman’s bomb, sending the ice shards in Alter Man’s back and Gel Woman’s hand. They got back up the second it was over. Detonation Woman already shot another bomb at them, but didn’t stop there. She shot one bomb after the other, exploding them as fast as she could. The rhythm was too fast for the two bots, Alter refusing to leave his injured partner behind and staying back to make sure was following.

Megaman prepared what he had left of the Zap bolt, wanting to assist them and ran towards their position to get a better chance at aiming.

Except Gush Man now had his eyes on _him_ , and still had all of his physical strength.

Megaman felt a hand grab onto his helmet and thumb under his chin. Gush Man threw the blue bomber against the wall and walked back to him. Megaman had barely the time to rise a little that Gush Man’s foot hit him right in his middle.

 _Crack_.

Megaman would have never thought his armor could sink that far.

He couldn’t help screaming. His systems sent him warning after warning. It had gone too far, broke other parts along. Important parts. He tried to get up, but even the nanites’ repairs couldn’t make his middle solid enough to withstand the strength he had put in. Megaman raised his buster, too unfocused to think about changing back, and shot two Zap Bolts in Gush Man’s chest. It seemed to have little effect, as he was dry and his armor was undamaged aside from the removed spout in his middle. No other Zap Bolts got out, he was all out, and his middle caught too much of his attention for him to realize why his buster was not shooting. He saw Gush Man raising his foot again and he absentmindedly reached at his back for Protoman’s shield, remembering too late he had left it with his brother. He hissed as he tried pulling his body up, the pain taking up too much of his attention for him to see anything else aside from Gush’s blue armor. He wouldn’t make it out in time.

Except the second hit never came.

The dark blue had switched to gray and red.

“Blues…” he breathed out. Blues shouldn’t be here.

He felt the heat wave of an explosion, then was pulled up, an arm around something soft. He tore his eyes off the wound, looking up at Protoman attempting to carry him to safety. Alter Man was right behind carrying Gel on his back and regularly forming shields behind them to block the bombs thrown their way.

Now that he was able to divert his attention away from the pain, feeling his systems lowering the pain receptors as much as they could, he looked back up at the machine, its front façade finally appearing in his field of view. The plasma canons were all seemingly pointed at the center of the front façade, attempting to shoot at the same target.

“We’ll have to divert their attention or we’ll never take cover!” hurriedly told Protoman to the others.

“We can’t, Bass is there!” exclaimed Megaman to his brother. “He’s alone, if we lose them, they’ll go to him!”

Treble was doing a more than decent job keeping the tanks from shooting Bass, but any more would certainly be overwhelming. Bass had gained more height and seemed to have found a use for the Gush Valve in the plasma canons, but he seemed to have a hard time dodging everything while keeping his current height.

Some movement caught his attention on Treble’s level. Boost Woman had gotten back up. If Detonation Woman also went their way, they could get seriously hurt.

“We can come back and assist him,” said Protoman. “We have to put you to safety first.”

Megaman found himself trying to squirm away from Protoman.

“We can’t,” he insisted. “We can’t let them take all the hits.”

“You have to.”

Boost Woman had made her way through the Guts tanks. Treble whined. He couldn’t do this to them. Megaman threw himself away from Protoman, trying to run to them and charge a plasma shot. He could hear Protoman behind running and calling. Bass abandoned his work on the canon and let himself fall in the middle of the tanks, going to his support unit’s side.

Megaman hadn’t payed attention to the robot they had been running away from. He felt the heat of an explosion on his back, sending him forward flat on his stomach. He pushed himself up with difficulty, the back part of the injury from the colossal Guts tank burning.

He heard Protoman hiss behind him and his shield clatter on the ground. Megaman turned back to see his brother on his knees, parts of his armor charred. He had a hand on his chest, unable to stop the hot drops of metal from flowing and dropping onto the floor.

“Protoman!” Megaman exclaimed, going back to him and kneeling at his side.

He barely had the time to go to his side that Blues fell on him, burning drops of metal flowing onto Megaman’s leg. His heavy breathing stopped and he remained unresponsive.

“Blues!” he shouted, his hand hovering over his chest, the other holding his head. “No, no, no—!”

He pulled him the rest of the way to Blues’ previous spot behind the rubble and knelt down. He could feel the heat emanating from him on his trembling hand, the drops flowing onto Megaman’s armor and into open wounds, making them sting even more. For the first time since he had arrived, he felt panic rise. He felt his body shake and he was at a complete loss for what to do. He couldn’t see Bass over the tanks anymore, he only now noticed Treble had been howling louder than he ever heard him do. Gel Woman and Alter Man had thrown themselves on Detonation Woman, resorting to physical restraints to keep her bombs from aiming at any of them. Gush Man was coming their way, and Alter threw him a panicked look.

Everywhere someone was part of the plan, it had gone wrong.


	19. And the Sun will Rise Again

It hadn’t occurred to him that he was hyperventilating until he realized someone had been calling for him.

“Rock! Rock, answer me!”

 _Roll_.

“It all went wrong—” he said, his hand still hovering over his unresponsive brother’s chest. “Gel Woman and Alter Man can’t hold on much longer—Treble has been calling for help and—And Blues—Blues! Roll, his core!”

His cheeks were wet. He hadn’t noticed. He felt the heat of an explosion on the other side of the rubble.

“We’re on our way, Rock,” she said, reassuringly, but sternly. “How’s Wily’s machine? Are you and Blues under cover?”

He shook his head even if she couldn’t see. “There’s so many tanks and—and canons—all still active”

“Are you and Blues covered?” she insisted.

“Behind some rubble,” The heat again, rubble fell. He pulled Blues, getting out of the way of some heavier piece starting to move threateningly. “I think the machine’s coming for us.”

“Is it safe behind there? Is there anywhere safe you can bring him quickly and efficiently?”

Rock looked around, slowly gaining back his focus. It was only piles and piles of rubble. “Nowhere is safe enough.”

Roll took a deep breath. “Leave him. Leave Blues.”

Megaman’s heart stopped at the possibility. “I can’t—” He lost the focus he had been regaining.

“No, you _have_ to!” replied Roll. “You’re not in any state to take heavy risks and I’m not losing _both_ of you!”

Detonation Woman let a bomb explode right next to her. Gel Woman didn’t get back up. Alter Man started carrying her away from Gush Man, who was closing in on them.

“I’m right here, Rock,” she said. “ _We_ ’re right here, on our way, you have to hold on just a bit longer! You have to leave him! Wily will just shoot at both of you, he’s not safe with you either!”

Megaman risked a peek out of the rubble. He could see through the fallen tanks Treble standing protectively over an unmoving Bass biting every part of Boost Woman his jaws came into contact with. He barked and growled, biting deep into her unstable legs, clawing at anything that came too close.

He looked up at the machine. He could hear Wily’s maniacal laughter. Wily knew he was winning, that he’d finally have his victory. The numerous canons started aiming at the rubble he and Blues were behind and charged at the same time, preparing for one big blow.

Focus, he had to focus.

He strengthened his hold on his brother and got up, carrying him over his shoulder and running behind the rubble, barely dodging the blows Wily fired early in an attempt to get him. He put his brother down. He had to leave him. Roll was right; It would put Blues at a greater risk if he stayed behind with him or carried him everywhere. He threw one last glance at Blues, then ran out toward Gush Man, faking to stop midway to aim, only to sprint toward the water robot when the canons started charging. Again, they fired early and out of order in an attempt to hit him. Megaman fired at Gush Man to make as much damage as possible, then ran past him, letting the canons finish the job.

Except one blast got him as he turned back, thinking they were done. It had continued charging and the plasma energy had grown in size, making a full body hit. He was thrown on the ground, his whole body numb, yet painful. More warnings filled his vision. He barely saw through them the canons still aiming, all of them at him, now certain of their success, and Megaman unable to move, all his limbs burning. He tried moving, but they barely moved a few inches, not nearly enough to roll away from the blow.

The ceiling suddenly cracked and collapsed, falling both on Wily’s machine and the floor beneath. There were so many new pieces of rubble, all shapes weirder than the previous one, and he feared one might fall on a bad spot and finish all of them off.

It’s only when one of the pieces landed next to him that he realized the weirder shapes weren’t smaller rubble. He recognized Elec Man.

The blurry pieces were Robot Masters, all here to help under Roll’s command.

Elec Man opened an etank, raising Megaman’s head and making him chug it all. It was just enough to allow him to sit back up and make the warnings disappear. His limbs still felt numb, he couldn’t move any more.

“Blues—!” exclaimed Megaman.

“We know, Shade Man’s on it,” said Elec Man, “He’ll fly out and bring him to the lab immediately.”

“Bass, Alter Man and Gel Woman! They’re on our side!”

“Don’t worry, your amazing sister Command Woman filled us in on that one too. He’s hiding behind rubble with Gel Woman while we take care of things,” the electric robot master glanced over at the machine, then back at Megaman. “We can’t really approach Treble, but Star Man’s unit is helping out with the tanks and Boost Woman, so they’ll be fine.”

The machine was swarmed by robot masters. Wily was yelling out all insults he could think of, his cackling gone as he realized he was losing control. Some robot masters fell under his blows. Megaman tried to stand, to go to them, but even the e-tank’s high wouldn’t allow him.

“You’ve done more than enough,” said Elec Man. “Let us handle it. Shade Man is on his way back. He’ll get you back to the lab.”

He heard parts falling, ringing loud in his head. He looked up at the machine with a blurry, partial vision still filled with warnings. The machine was falling.

Wily was falling.

And when Shade Man came to take him back to the lab, he felt the heat of an even bigger explosion as parts flew all over the room, followed by a collective roar of victory.

* * *

Rock woke up on the makeshift lab table, and it’s only once he moved a few fingers that he realized his body was completely painless. It hadn’t been like that since the first time he woke up after his updates. It felt almost odd. He tried putting more strength into his back and, after a moment, he slowly rose to a sitting position. His body gave him results of their diagnostics, all in a good light. He seemed to have been repaired and charged to full power. What happened between Shade Man grabbing him and his awakening was a blur, but he remembered the explosion.

“Rock!” exclaimed a nearby familiar voice.

He turned his head to the source of the noise. Roll was there, a pad in hand, in one of her usual red dresses. It felt like he hadn’t seen her like that in ages. Next to her was the true lab table, with Blues on it, hooked in and seemingly deactivated.

“How long has it been…?” asked Rock, getting off the table. “Is he okay?”

Roll glanced at the diagnostics next to Blues, noted something on her pad, then went to Rock. “A few days… and yes, he’s mostly fine. He woke up yesterday, but since we removed his core to prevent any further damage, he needs to stay off a lot.

Rock looked down. He remembered running from him, the explosion in his back… “If only I hadn’t—”

Roll shook her head before he finished that thought. “We all knew this would happen at some point. It could have been while he was out on his own, it could have happened inside the fortress, or when he was assisting us… I’m just glad it happened when we could retrieve him quickly.”

“What’s going to happen to him?” asked Rock, hoping for the best, fearing the worst. The answer was an in-between.

“I’m not sure yet,” said Roll. “Putting back his previous core would definitely melt the remaining of his chest and kill him, so we’re not doing that. We suggested to him to replace his core, but we’re still waiting for him to consent. Well, if he _does_ consent to it in the end. We know how touchy is can be for him.”

“So, he refused?” asked Rock.

“He hasn’t said yes or no yet, he just said he’d think about it. For now, we’re letting him rest up, there’s no rush.”

There was a bark in the next room.

“Speaking of rush…” she had a little smirk as she heard the paws scrapping against the floor.

The red dog came running in, practically jumping on Rock and started fiercely licking his face. Rock laughed and knelt, petting the dog back and giving back as much love as the overjoyed Rush would let him. He had seen him so little in so long, and he thought that as soon as he could, he should go out and play fetch with him.

He suddenly saw Treble running at a crowbar. Rush seemed to notice the sudden down from Rock and calmed down a little bit, tilting his head and lolling his tongue.

“What about Bass?” asked Rock. “What happened to him?”

“He disappeared with a few etanks after we were done with repairing him and Treble,” she said. “He didn’t even wait for a charge. We thought of sending out a search party for him, at least to keep him under check and make sure he wasn’t going to make any trouble… but then Blues told us what he did for you guys. The e-tanks, the nanites… rescuing you from the hounds after you called me… we figured he deserved some time to do what he wants. If it doesn’t stir trouble of course.”

And that was aside from the fight against Wily. He’d have to thank him if they ever ran into each other.

“Oh, and he left a note,” added Roll. “Said you owed him a fight.”

“Of course,” sighed Rock.

But then, he felt that perhaps he owed him, much, much more.

“What did you do with Wily?”

“He got pretty beaten when his machine blew, so he’s under tight surveillance at the hospital, and he goes straight to trial afterwards, though at this point you could say it’s pretty much already won.”

“What if he has some back up robots like when Bass and I first met?”

“Then we’ll be ready,” she said. “Wily’s main scheme is over, we’ll have more than enough time to get everyone repaired and ready to go, _and_ the EWNs, with some conditions, agreed to be rebuilt and repurposed.”

“EWNs?”

“That’s what Alter Man said their line was called: Elite Wily Numbers,” she shrugged. “Wily had a lot of faith his plan would work, Rock. But it failed, and now we’re ready to fight back. More than ever.”

“Especially with an army of cooperative Robot Master and their new leader Command Woman,” interrupted another voice. Doctor Light had heard Rush’s excited barks. “Welcome back, my boy.”

Rock looked at his father, smiled, and ran into his arms. It was good to be home. Hopefully for good.

* * *

Rock could barely contain the excited Rush with the leash. The dog hadn’t gone on a real walk since Wily had first attacked according to Roll, and it really showed. He pulled at his leash, then jumped on Rock excitedly, then pulled at the leash again in a never-ending cycle.

It had been a few days since Rock had re-activated, and he hadn’t realized how much he needed the fresh air until he stepped out. There had been a lot of construction sites around, slowing his way to the park, but he didn’t really mind. He looked at the robots at work while passing. The city was slowly rebuilding from Wily’s attacks, going to serious long-term construction instead of the quick and efficient but rough-looking patching between attacks. He waved at a few construction robot masters he saw on the way, already back at work as if their schedule hadn’t been completely thrown off for months.

Blues still hadn’t made a decision, but the fact he was still considering it was promising. A year ago he would have said a stern “no” and left. If things went well, maybe Blues would leave once again to do whatever he did out and this time Rock wouldn’t be so worried about him. It would be a welcome change.

One of the detours he took to the park made him stop in his tracks. The robot museum. He approached the all too familiar building. It still stood tall, the marks of battle patched. He stepped on the grass he had once practiced his basic maneuvers on with Elec Man, looking down at the patches of once torn grass. They were slowly starting to grow back. The hedges still looked chaotic, but there seemed to have been an effort at trimming them at least semi-neatly using the little green that remained on them. For a moment, he just stood there and took in the scenery. After a minute on sitting and struggling to be still, Rush pushed on his master’s hand with his truffle, and Rock went to pet his head, looking down at him. As he looked, he noticed a thick branch on the ground, probably a torn branch from the numerous battles in the area. Whoever has replanted grass and cut the hedges must have missed it. He picked it up. It felt heavy for a wooden branch. Heavy and thick, like a crowbar.

“Come on boy,” said Rock, turning back towards the park. “Let’s go play fetch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand, that's the end. Funny how this story changed since I first thought of it about two years ago. I hope you enjoyed the ride as much as I did, and have a great day/night!


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